The biggest talk at the Berlin International Film Festival in recent days wasn't about which film would take home the prestigious Golden Bear award, but a remark made on opening day by the festival's jury president, German filmmaker Wim Wenders. When a journalist asked the jury about human rights and Gaza, Wenders replied, "We have to stay out of politics."
He called filmmakers "the counterweight to politics." Over the course of the festival, multiple films pulled out of the program, citing solidarity with Palestine; author Arundhati Roy dropped out due to what she called "unconscionable statements" made by members of the jury; Kaouther Ben Hania, director of the Oscar-nominated film The Voice of Hind Rajab, refused to accept an award at a gala hosted by the Cinema for Peace Foundation.
Trisha Tuttle, the festival's director, released a lengthy statement titled, "On Speaking, Cinema and Politics," writing, "We do not believe there is a filmmaker screening in this festival who is indifferent to what is happening in this world, who does not take the rights, the lives and the immense suffering of people in Gaza and the West Bank, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan, in Iran, in Ukraine, in Minneapolis, and in a terrifying number of places, seriously."
She wrote, "Artists are free to exercise their right of free speech in whatever way they choose."
Still, more than 100 artists, including Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, and Adam McKay, have signed an open letter published in Variety condemning the Berlinale for "censoring artists who oppose Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state's key role in enabling it."
(The German government provides significant funding for the festival.)
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tuttle said she understood the "pain and anger and urgency" behind the letter, but rejected any allegations of censorship. "It's not true that we are silencing filmmakers. It's not true that our programmers are intimidating filmmakers. In fact, the opposite," she said.
Unlike sun-drenched Cannes or the lakeside charm of Locarno, the Berlinale unfolds in the depths of winter at Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, arriving on the heels of Sundance Film Festival. And since its founding in 1951 during the Cold War, the Berlinale has gained a reputation as the most overtly political of the major festivals, not only for its programming choices, but for its history of engaging with global crises, as in 2023, when it condemned Russia's war on Ukraine and expressed solidarity with protesters Iran. Critics say that despite being vocal on other issues, the Berlinale has not spoken out about Gaza.
Between it all, movies at the festival spoke for themselves. This year's slate blended the personal and the political, telling stories of bustling Lagos, 1930s Australia, and family traditions in Guinea-Bissau.
I was there for the entirety. These stories stood out.
Rose
The best film that I saw in the festival's competition was one that I didn't expect. Markus Schleinzer and Alexander Brom's black-and-white period piece is very serious, and very German, but also unexpectedly funny. Set in the early 17th century Germany, Sandra Hüller (who you'll recognize from Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest) plays a mysterious soldier named Rose, who arrives at an isolated Protestant village claiming to be the heir to an abandoned farm. In order to build a life for herself and fit in, she disguises herself as a man. She quickly emerges as one of the community's strongest leaders, but lives in constant fear that her secret will be exposed. Hüller's performance is brilliant and triumphant, bringing to life a story about gender, privilege, and belonging.
Lady
Olive Nwosu's debut feature radiates a restless, pulsing energy — both through the thrum of Lagos and the courage of its women. The film focuses on Lady, one of Lagos' few female cab drivers, who dreams of leaving the city. So when her childhood friend Pinky, now a sex worker, offers her a well-paying gig chauffeuring her and her friends to their nighttime appointments, it's hard for Lady to refuse. But the experience opens up old wounds, and as Lady is drawn deeper into their orbit, she is forced to confront the ways in which their shared past looms larger than any one person's will. Nwosu's portrait of Lagos is filled with care and nuance, with an eye to the complicated solidarities that bind its people together.
Wolfram
Director Warwick Thornton's latest is a sweet and tender story of redemption, set against the backdrop of a searing Australian desert landscape. The Western, a sequel to the 2017 film Sweet Country, centers two adorable Aboriginal children in colonial 1930's Australia, who have escaped from a mining camp where they were forced to work by their white masters. In their search for safety, they are hunted by two outlaws on horseback who want nothing more than to see them dead. But Thornton is less interested in portraying his characters as victims than survivors, bound together by the strength of love and resilience.
Dao
It wasn't until more than halfway through director Alain Gomis' sprawling film that I realized it wasn't a documentary. In an on-screen process, Gomis brings professional actors and non-actors together, casting them as members of the same extended family. Spanning nearly three hours and unfolding across two ceremonies, a wedding in France and a ritual in Guinea-Bissau, Dao dissolves the boundaries between reality and fiction to offer a meditation on the cyclical nature of life, people and traditions. The question of whether the film is "truly" a documentary is by design. It is precisely this uncertainty that Gomis invites us to sit with, blurring categories so completely that the distinction begins to feel beside the point.
Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest
What does it mean to search for oneself? In her charming debut feature documentary, Viv Li turns the question inward, tracing her own coming-of-age across two sharply contrasting worlds: Berlin and China. Stuck in Berlin after the pandemic, Li oscillates between new ideas of freedom and old forms of expectations. But does the search ever truly end? Li asks. Full of vulnerability, whimsy, and surprise, Li films herself over several years, as we see her in intimate moments with friends, exploring Berlin's queer scene, and in candid discussions with relatives in China over dinner. In the end, Li suggests that perhaps resolution is overrated — and the willingness to stay curious, no matter what, might be the only thing we need.
Chronicles From the Siege
Even when a city is under siege, survival means more than just staying alive, but also finding ways to remain fully, stubbornly human. Drawn from his own experiences during the siege of the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Syria, Abdallah Al-Khatib's debut film follows five interwoven stories in a city under fire. In one thread, two lovers risk everything for a fleeting moment together and in another, a former video store owner struggles simply to stay alive. Across these intersecting stories, Al-Khatib looks beyond the spectacle of war, resisting the notion that lives can be reduced to headlines and politics.
Mouse
Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson, known for their films Saint Frances and Ghostlight, have always been experts at making humanity feel precious with stories that always loom much larger than their loglines. Their newest is a festival favorite. Mouse follows two best friends, Minnie and Callie, in their senior year in North Little Rock, Arkansas. But when their friendship falters, Minnie is forced to navigate her own identity. Delicate yet heartbreaking, the film is driven by two filmmakers who understand what real life actually feels like, showing that what is big doesn't require drama and that grief is never small, never solitary, and always different.
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