The Berlin International Film Festival has announced the titles selected for the Competition and Perspectives sections of its 76th edition, running from 12-22 February. This will be the festival’s second year under the artistic direction of Tricia Tuttle. Twenty-two films will be vying for the Golden and Silver Bears in the Competition, alongside 13 debut features in Perspectives, the Berlinale’s platform dedicated to emerging filmmakers.

The Competition line-up includes one debut feature, one animated film and one documentary, with 20 world premieres on the cards. Nine of the movies are directed or co-directed by women, while 14 filmmakers are returning to the festival, six of them having previously competed for the Golden Bear.

Brazilian-born filmmaker Karim Aïnouz, winner of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Prize for The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão [+leggi anche:
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Germany features prominently in the line-up, with Eva Trobisch’s Home Stories, a contemporary identity drama unfolding around a reality talent show, and Silver Bear winner Angela Schanelec’s My Wife Cries, where once again she distils emotional fracture into a rigorously pared-down narrative. İlker Çatak (The Teachers’ Lounge [+leggi anche:
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France remains a key creative hub within the Competition. Alain Gomis, (Félicité [+leggi anche:
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Belgian-based filmmaker Anke Blondé’s Dust revisits the late-1990s tech boom through the collapse of a fraudulent empire, while Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s The Loneliest Man in Town offers an intimate portrait of blues musician Al Cook. Music also takes centre stage in Everybody Digs Bill Evans by Grant Gee, which delves into the inner life of the titular legendary jazz pianist, starring Anders Danielsen Lie and Bill Pullman.

Kornél Mundruczó (White God [+leggi anche:
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The Competition also includes Yoshitoshi Shinomiya’s animated debut, A New Dawn, unfolding around a fireworks factory facing closure and a mythical creation, and Nightborn by Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm, whose debut, Hatching [+leggi anche:
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Meanwhile, the Perspectives section returns for its second edition, boasting 13 feature debuts, 11 of them world premieres. Six films are directed by women, and European productions and co-productions again play a central role.

Among the European debuts are 17 by Kosara Mitic, a coming-of-age drama shaped by secrecy and solidarity; Trial of Hein by Kai Stänicke, which turns a homecoming into a collective act of suspicion; and Forest High by Manon Coubia, a seasonal meditation on solitude and nature in the Alps (see the news).

The selection also includes Dara Van Dusen’s A Prayer for the Dying, reimagining the American Civil War as a moral and spiritual reckoning; Animol, Ashley Walters’ prison drama unfolding inside a young-offender institution; and Truly Naked by Muriel d’Ansembourg, which explores intimacy, vulnerability and consent through the perspective of an adolescent forced to confront life beyond the lens.

Here is the complete line-up:

Competition

Rosebush Pruning – Karim Aïnouz (Italy/Germany/Spain/UK)
Salvation – Emin Alper (Turkey/France/Netherlands/Greece/Sweden/Saudi Arabia)
Nightborn – Hanna Bergholm (Finland/Lithuania/France/UK)
Dust – Anke Blondé (Belgium/Poland/Greece/UK)
In a Whisper – Leyla Bouzid (France/Tunisia)
Yellow Letters – İlker Çatak (Germany/France/Turkey)
We Are All Strangers – Anthony Chen (Singapore)
The Loneliest Man in Town – Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel (Austria)
Josephine – Beth de Araújo (USA)
Nina Roza – Genevieve Dulude-de Celles (Canada/Italy/Bulgaria/Belgium)
Flies – Fernando Eimbcke (Mexico)
YO Love Is a Rebellious Bird – Anna Fitch, Banker White (USA)
Everybody Digs Bill Evans – Grant Gee (Ireland/UK)
Dao – Alain Gomis (France/Senegal/Guinea-Bissau)
Queen at Sea – Lance Hammer (UK/USA)
Soumsoum, The Night of the Stars – Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (France/Chad)
At the Sea – Kornél Mundruczó (USA/Hungary)
My Wife Cries – Angela Schanelec (Germany/France)
Rose – Markus Schleinzer (Austria/Germany)
A New Dawn – Yoshitoshi Shinomiya (Japan/France)
Wolfram – Warwick Thornton (Australia)
Home Stories – Eva Trobisch (Germany)

Perspectives

Chronicles from the Siege – Abdallah Alkhatib (Algeria/France/Palestine)
Forest High – Manon Coubia (Belgium/France)
Truly Naked – Muriel d’Ansembourg (Netherlands/Belgium/France)
The River Train – Lorenzo Ferro, Lucas A Vignale (Argentina)
Where To? – Assaf Machnes (Israel/Germany)
Filipiñana – Rafael Manuel (Singapore/UK/Philippines/France/Netherlands)
17 – Kosara Mitic (North Macedonia/Serbia/Slovenia)
Our Secret – Grace Passô (Brazil/Portugal)
The Red Hangar – Juan Pablo Sallato (Chile/Argentina/Italy)
Take Me Home – Liz Sargent (USA)
Trial of Hein – Kai Stänicke (Germany)
A Prayer for the Dying – Dara Van Dusen (Norway/Greece/UK/Sweden)
Animol – Ashley Walters (UK)