New films from Richard Linklater, Michel Franco and Hong Sang-soo are among the competition highlights of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, the world’s largest public film festival, which today revealed its full lineup .
by Linklater Blue Moona period drama about the final days of Lorenz Hart, one half of the Rodgers & Hart songwriting team, will have its world premiere at the Berlinale, marking Linklater’s fourth time competing in Berlin. During his last go-around, with Childhood in 2014, he won the Silver Bear for best director. The feature film, starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott, will be distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Classics.
Hong Sang-soo, Berlinale regular and four-time Silver Bear winner, returns with his latest intimate drama, What does this nature tell you?; and Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud, whose feature film Sex was a crowd favorite in Berlin last year, is back with Dreamsthe last feature film of his Sex, love, dreams trilogy.
Other highlights of the competition include hot milkthe first film by Polish screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, Disobedience), with Emma Mackey and Vicky Krieps; That of Michel Franco Dreamsthe Mexican helmsman teams up with his Jessica Chastain; and French drama The ice tower by director Lucile Hadžihalilović, with Marion Cotillard, Gaspar Noé and August Diehl.
Marion Cotillard in “The Tower of Ice”
© 3B-Davis-Sutor Kolonko-Arte
Opening the press conference, Tuttle praised Berlin’s reputation as the most political of the major festivals.
“People often ask me, and the press often asks me, if we are a political festival, and we can’t be, and we don’t hesitate to be,” Tuttle said. “It’s arguably in the DNA of the city itself and also in the festival itself, but it’s fair to say that the Berlinale represents many things, and for all festivals and all culture at this time. At this time, the news agenda can often dominate the discourse, but we really hope, and believe, that the films audiences see over the next few weeks of the festival will get people talking about the dynamism of the film form. art itself and the films themselves.
Politics overshadowed cinema last year in Berlin, when Berlinale winners who called for a ceasefire in Gaza and made pro-Palestinian statements on stage sparked a backlash in Germany. Prominent politicians from both the left and right called the statements “anti-Semitic” and called for “consequences” from the festival.
Tuttle admitted that the situation in Berlin this year will be “difficult”, especially as Germany is in the midst of a national election campaign, with voting taking place on February 23, the last day of the festival.
“But let’s be honest, this year has been really tough for every festival,” Tuttle said. “We live in a very conflicted and divided world, and discourse is not always friendly and open, which creates a difficult environment. But as difficult as it has been, and I say this very honestly, it has also been very joyful, very enjoyable and a real privilege to see the films that we have just talked about here and to work with our teams to put together a program. . So I think it would be crazy of me to complain about the difficulties of showing these incredible films to audiences.
There are certainly plenty of political talking points in the official programming, among them the world premieres of Marcin Wierzchowski The Deutsche Volklook back at the far-right attacks in the German town of Hanau in 2020; Michtav Le’David (A letter to David) by Israeli director Tom Shoval, a cinematic film letter to his friend David Cunio, kidnapped on October 7 at Kibbutz Nir Oz; And My Unwanted Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscowa documentary by American director Julia Loktev, which documents independent journalists in Moscow facing government repression as Russia invades Ukraine. All three films will be screened in the special program of the Berlinale.
Berlin has already announced most of the films screening in its gala sections this year, including Mickey 17 years old, the science fiction feature film with Robert Pattinson from Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho, who will bow out of competition, and The lightthe new film by German director Tom Tykwer (Lola Courses, Cloud Atlas), which will open the 2025 Berlinale on February 13.
The Berlin boxes are also complete. The full program of Panorama – an “explicitly queer, explicitly feminist, explicitly political” section presenting independent arthouse cinema from around the world – as well as Forum (experimental cinema) and Generation (films for youth and children) were revealed earlier this month.
Sidebar highlights include new features from arthouse favorites Ira Sachs (Peter Hujar’s day), Denis Côté (Paul), and Michel Gondry (Maya, give me a title).
American director Todd Haynes (Carole, Far from paradise), including the first feature film Poison won the Teddy Award in Berlin in 1991, is president of this year’s international jury which will choose the winners of the Berlin Golden and Silver Bears. Tilda Swinton, who has screened a total of 26 films in Berlin over the years, will this year receive the Honorary Golden Bear for her entire career.
Berlinale 2025 Competition
Aridirector: Léonor Serraille
France / Belgium (2025)
Blue Moondirector: Richard Linklater
United States / Ireland (2025)
The cachedirector: Lionel Baier
Switzerland / Luxembourg / France (2025)
Dreamsdirector: Michel Franco
Mexico (2025)
Drømmer (Dreams (sexual love))director: Dag Johan Haugerud
Norway (2024)
Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani (What does this nature tell you)director: Hong Sangsoo
South Korea (2025)
hot milkdirector: Rebecca Lenkiewicz
United Kingdom (2025)
If I had legs I’d kick youdirector: Mary Bronstein
United States (2024)
Continental ’25director: Radu Jude
Romania (2025)
El mensaje (The message)director: Ivan Fund
Argentina / Spain (2025)
Mother’s babydirector: Johanna Moder
Austria / Switzerland / Germany (2025)
O último azul (The Blue Path)director: Gabriel Mascaro
Brazil / Mexico / Chile / Netherlands (2025)
Reflection in a dead diamonddirectors: Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
Belgium / Luxembourg / Italy / France (2025)
Sheng xi zhi di (Living the land)director: Huo Meng
People’s Republic of China (2025)
Strichka chasu (time stamp)director: Kateryna Gornostai
Ukraine / Luxembourg / Netherlands / France (2025)
The Ice Towerdirector: Lucile Hadžihalilović
France / Germany (2025)
Is Marielle Weiß (What Marielle Knows)director: Frédéric Hambalek
Germany (2025)
Xiang fei de nv hai (Girls on Wire)director: Vivian Qu
People’s Republic of China (2025)
Yunandirector: Ameer Fakher Eldin
Germany / Canada / Italy / Palestine / Qatar / Jordan / Saudi Arabia (2025)
Berlinale Special 2025
After this deathdirector: Lucio Castro
United States (2025)
A complete stranger (like a complete stranger)director: James Mangold
United States (2024)
Heldin (late team)director: Petra Volpe
Switzerland / Germany (2025)
Islandsdirector: Jan-Ole Gerster
Germany (2025)
Cologne 75director: Ido Fluk
Germany / Poland / Belgium (2025)
Das Licht (The Light)director: Tom Tykwer
Germany (2025)
Lurkerdirector: Alex Russell
United States / Italy (2025)
Mickey 17director: Bong Joon Ho
United States / South Korea / United Kingdom (2024)
The thing with feathersdirector: Dylan Southern
United Kingdom (2025)
Ancestral visions of the futuredirector: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
France / Lesotho / Germany / Saudi Arabia (2025)
The Deutsche Volkdirector: Marcin Wierzchowski
Germany (2025)
Bouquet of honeydirectors: Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
Canada (2025)
I only had nothingness – “Shoah” by Claude Lanzmann (All I Had Was Nothingness)director: Guillaume Ribot
France (2025)
Kein level. So wild. (No beast. So fierce.)director: Burhan Qurbani
Germany / Poland / France (2025)
Leibniz – Chronik eines verschollenen Bildes (Leibniz – Chronicle of a lost painting)directors: Edgar Reitz, Anatol Schuster
Germany (2025)
A melhor mãe do mundo (The best mother in the world | Die beste Mutter der Welt)director: Anna Muylaert
Brazil / Argentina (2025)
Michtav Le’David (A letter to David)director: Tom Shoval
Israel / United States (2025)
My Unwanted Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscowdirector: Julia Loktev
United States (2024)
Pa-gwa (The old woman with the knife)director: Min Kyu-dong
South Korea (2025)
Holocaustdirector: Claude Lanzmann
France (1985)
The death of friendshipdirector: Peter Wollen
United Kingdom (1987)
Prospects for the Berlinale 2025
Al Mosta’mera (the settlement)director: Mohamed Rashad
Egypt / France / Germany / Saudi Arabia / Qatar (2025)
Baksho Bondi (Shadowbox)directors: Tanushree Das, Saumyananda Sahi
India / France / USA / Spain (2025)
BLKNWS: General conditionsdirector: Khalil Joseph
United States (2025)
Come the note (Where the night stops)director: Liryc Dela Cruz
Italy / Philippines (2025)
El Diablo Fuma (y guarda las cabezas de los cerillos quemados en la misma caja) (The devil smokes (and saves the burnt matches in the same box))director: Ernesto Martínez Bucio
Mexico (2025)
Duas Vezes João Liberada (Twice João Liberada)director: Paula Tomás Marques
Portugal (2025)
Hey man (eel)director: Chu Chun-Teng
Taiwan (2025)
How to be normal and the strangeness of the other worlddirector: Florian Pochlatko
Austria (2025)
Kaj ti je deklica (Little girls with problems)director: Urška Djukić
Slovenia / Italy / Croatia / Serbia (2025)
Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)director: Joël Alfonso Vargas
United States (2025)
Minden Rendben (Growing up)director: Bálint Dániel Sós
Hungary (2025)
Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen (Strike the world)director: Constanze Klaue
Germany (2025)
We believe youdirectors: Arnaud Dufeys, Charlotte Devillers
Belgium (2025)
The summer meetingdirector: Valentine Cadic
France (2025)
