Latest in Berlin Film Festival

The Berlin Film Festival has confirmed that it will hold its Berlinale Summer Special (June 9-20, 2021) program as an outdoor event across 16 venues.  The falling Covid rate in the country and positive noises from government officials have renewed optimism among organizers that the event can go ahead in an outdoor…

The Berlin Film Festival’s planned summer screenings event is in doubt due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions in Germany. The festival said today: “The restrictions set out by the recently updated Infection Protection Act now make the planning of the Berlinale Summer Special a bigger challenge. The festival directors…

Focus Features has taken global rights to Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov’s thriller Profile, which made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018 and won the Audience Award there. A theatrical release date of May 14 has been set. Universal Pictures will distribute internationally, excluding…

EXCLUSIVE: Indie stalwart Cassian Elwes is making a move into management via his Elevated banner, kicking off with signing Best Sellers director Lina Roessler, whose debut feature starring Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza screened in the Berlin Film Festival’s Special Gala section this week. It's the first time the film…

UPDATED WRITETHRU: The Berlin Film Festival revealed its 2021 awards in a virtual presentation this afternoon with Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn scooping the top prize Golden Bear. Also among winners are debut filmmaker Dénes Nagy who took the Silver Bear for Best Director with Natural Light. Maria…

The two most mature and emotionally insightful 8-year-old girls you've ever encountered in your life are the subjects of Petite Maman. Magnetically attentive to the serious "things of life," as the French put it, Céline Sciamma's 72-minute study of an intense brief friendship between two girls of extraordinary similar…

Lupin is "a great achievement, not only for us but for all producers around the world," said Gaumont Vice CEO Christophe Riandée, who is also a producer of the hit Netflix series, during a panel at the European Film Market today. The Omar Sy-starrer which has been a worldwide smash on streaming, is produced by Gaumont…

South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo has been a particular favorite at the Berlin Film Festival for quite some time — he won the Best Director prize there last year for The Woman Who Ran — and he's back again this year with another competition entry, Introduction. A study of indecision and uncertainty in the realms of…

Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin co-directed the sports documentary Undefeated in 2011, and their Berlin Film Festival Special Gala, Tina, could have shared the same title. While this is set in the world of music, its emphasis is on the resilience, survival and comeback of its subject, singer Tina Turner. Featuring a…

A teacher comes under fire for a sex tape in Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, the Berlin Film Festival competition entry from Romanian writer-director Radu Jude (Aferim!). We first meet Emi (Katia Pascariu) when she is engaged in graphic sex with her husband, who's filming an amateur video. She's wearing a feline eye…

Tides just aches to be a waterborne Blade Runner crossed with Mad Max, but instead emerges as even more waterlogged than Waterworld. A soupy, post-apocalyptic Europudding that needed more action, greater imagination and a star of some magnitude in the leading role, this tale of an investigation into the possibility of…

Two fine actors volley for advantage across 90 minutes in the tastily insidious little melodrama Next Door (Nebenan). Stepping behind the camera for the first time while also remaining in front of it, Daniel Bruhl (Inglourious Basterds, Rush, Captain America: Civil War) shows a sure grip on this mostly two-handed bar…