This year’s Berlin Film Festival, under new artistic director Tricia Tuttle, moves closer toward popular tastes than arguably under the stead of Carlo Chatrian. He departed the festival last year while leaving behind a legacy of programming a more arthouse-minded slate. Italian cineaste Chatrian came from Locarno as well as more niche festivals throughout Europe; Tuttle is an American with a history of film journalism and programming in the States and at the BFI London.
Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” (Warner Bros., March 7) and the Berlin premiere of “A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures) brought stars like Robert Pattinson and Timothée Chalamet (along with his girlfriend Kylie Jenner) to the festival for viral moments that have put an energizing, social-media-friendly spotlight on the European showcase here in the U.S. “Mickey 17” needs all the help it can get, as the sci-fi comedy has been re-dated several times and, in the David Zaslav-run world of Warner Bros. Discovery, feels like it’s not getting a hearty marketing push (certainly less a plum theatrical date) from its studio. It was a good get for the revamped Berlinale, under Tuttle and her co-directors of programming, Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.
But these aren’t competition titles eligible for festival prizes. In the main competition this year are films including Richard Linklater’s Ethan Hawke-starrer “Blue Moon” (Sony Pictures Classics), Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s “Hot Milk” (IFC) with Fiona Shaw, Michel Franco’s “Dreams” with Jessica Chastain (seeking a buyer), and Mary Bronstein’s Sundance sensation “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (A24) with Rose Byrne, among less star-driven vehicles that instead reflect the art film scene of Europe. Most are unlikely to cross over to the United States, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still have an impact abroad.
The 2025 Berlinale competition jury is headed up by Todd Haynes, whose narrative feature debut “Poison” won a Teddy prize for queer filmmaking there in 1991. He’s joined by jurors Nabil Ayouch (Morocco/France), costume designer Bina Daigeler (Germany), actor Fan Bingbing (China), director Rodrigo Moreno (Argentina), Los Angeles Times critic Amy Nicholson (U.S.), and writer/director/actor Maria Schrader (Germany).
All participated in a sparkly German television taping on a black-tie opening night at the 1,600-seat Berlinale Palast, hosted by presenter Désirée Nosbusch, where Haynes hinted at a “love fest” going on among the jurors already as of day one. The opening night film, Tom Tykwer’s “The Light,” made sense as a German film to open the festival and reflect the national identity of the fest, but the 160-minute white guilt odyssey (also set in Berlin) received scalding reviews and didn’t set a great tone going ahead. But the festival only rebounded with a number of acclaimed movies afterward.
Together, the jury is looking at 19 films to select winners of the Golden Bear and other prizes, including the new film, “Kontinental ’25,” from Radu Jude. The Romanian director won the Golden Bear in 2021 for “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” which opened stateside from Magnolia Pictures later that year and repped his country at the 2022 Oscars.
Looking at the Screen International grid, which averages rankings from nine European critics, competition standouts so far are Franco’s bruising immigration romance “Dreams,” 2014 Silver Bear winner Linklater’s Lorenz Hart chamber tragicomedy “Blue Moon,” Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro’s touching septuagenarian sci-fi “The Blue Trail,” Frédéric Hambalek’s German telepathy comedy “What Marielle Knows,” and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” Also beloved by critics early in the fest was Huo Meng’s “Living the Land,” a 1990s-set Chinese coming-of-age tale. Ditto French writer/director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s “The Ice Tower,” a Lynchian fairy-tale starring Marion Cotillard as a chilly screen actress in the 1970s; Yellow Veil Pictures bought it during the fest for a later North American release.
I’d expect Australian “If I Had Legs” star Byrne to take the Silver Bear for Lead Performance (the festival shifted to gender-neutral acting honors for the 2021 edition). That’s much the same path as last year’s leading winner, Sebastian Stan, took for “A Different Man,” also an A24 release and also from Sundance. (And look, he’s now an Oscar nominee, albeit for his other film, “The Apprentice.”) A win for Byrne, who gives a harrowing performance in constant anguished close-up as an unraveling mother and therapist, would boost the film’s awards profile into the year. It doesn’t feel like an Oscar picture, but stranger things have happened (like Demi Moore and “The Substance” getting all the nods they did).
Last year’s Berlin winners lineup was full of surprises and some films that didn’t pop in North America, though Golden Bear-winning documentary “Dahomey” got a stateside release from MUBI and represented Senegal on the Oscars shortlist (Mati Diop’s portrait of repatriated African artifacts didn’t make the final five docs). Last year, tireless Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, who puts out a feature or two every year, won the Grand Jury Prize for “A Traveler’s Needs.” He often wins at Berlin, like the Silver Bear for Best Director in 2020 for “The Woman Who Ran.” He’s back at the festival this year with “What Does That Nature Say to You,” another booze- and conversation-fueled portrait of an artist and his romantic entanglements. Don’t count Hong out of winning a prize again this year. The film screens Thursday, February 20.
“Blue Moon,” too, can expect to win something after rapturous receptions at the press screening and premiere at the Berlinale Palast. Sony Classics releases the period film, in which Ethan Hawke dons a bald cap and takes on a much shorter stature to play the 5-foot-tall songwriter Hart, later this spring. The thought could’ve been that “Blue Moon” wasn’t liked enough by Cannes to premiere there, and thus Berlin, but Linklater has another movie this year, “Nouvelle Vague” about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” that feels primed for the Croisette as an out-of-competition bow. Same goes for Jude, whose iPhone-shot social satire “Kontinental ’25” sets him up for another potential Berlin win, but he also has a Dracula movie coming out later this year, possibly at Cannes, too. His films, though, tend to play festivals like Locarno or Karlovy Vary.
Ukraine wartime portrait “Timestamp,” which is the only documentary in the competition this year, has also received strong reviews, while still to screen is Swiss director Lionel Baier’s 1968-riot-inspired “The Safe House.” The awards unveil on Saturday, February 22.
