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Berlinale

Berlinale Co-Head Mariëtte Rissenbeek to Step Down After 2024 Fest

Mariëtte Rissenbeek, the executive director of the Berlin International Film Festival, will step down after next year’s Berlinale. The German culture ministry, which finances the festival, announced Thursday that Rissenbeek will not be renewing her current contract, which expires in March 2024. German Culture Minister Claudia Roth said she accepted the resignation “with great regret” […]

‘Opponent’ (‘Motstandaren’) Review: Payman Maadi Brings Searing Intensity to Character Study of an Iranian Refugee in Sweden

Writer-director Milad Alami’s accomplished second feature weaves an emotional domestic drama around a wrestler torn between family and suppressed desires.

‘Afire’ (‘Roter Himmel’) Review: Christian Petzold Examines the Insecurities of the Male Artist in Nimble Chamber Piece

The German director’s interest in growth out of crisis drives this initially playful, progressively more somber drama about four people thrown together in a seaside vacation home.

‘20,000 Species of Bees’ Review: A Tender and Assured Feature Debut About Gender and the Generational Divide  

Spanish filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s drama follows an 8-year-old who begins to transition and the effect it has on the child's family.

‘#Manhole’ Review: High-Concept J-Horror Movie Overstays Its Welcome

Japanese pop singer Yuto Nakajima is the sole star of Kayuoshi Kumakiri’s latest gory thriller, which premiered in Berlin’s Panorama sidebar.

‘Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker’ Review: Alex Gibney’s Tennis Doc Is for Fans Only

The documentarian tracks the tennis legend's rise and fall in a two-part Apple TV+ docuseries premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.

‘The Plough’ Review: Director Philippe Garrel’s Very French Family Affair

The 74-year-old auteur's latest stars his own three children — Louis Garrel, Esther Garrel and Lena Garrel — in a story about a patriarch handing over the reins of his long-running puppet theatre.

‘Music’ Review: German Auteur Angela Schanelec’s Elegant if Highly Enigmatic Modern Myth

The winner of the 2019 Silver Bear award returns to the Berlinale with a film inspired by the tragedy of Oedipus, starring French actors Aliocha Schneider and Agathe Bonitzer.

‘Love to Love You, Donna Summer’ Review: HBO’s Queen of Disco Bio-Doc Goes Heavy on the Personal but Undersells the Music

Co-directed by Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano, Summer’s daughter, the film is an archive-based portrait of the artist whose ageless hits with producer Giorgio Moroder can still pack a dance floor.

‘Seneca — On the Creation of Earthquakes’ Review: John Malkovich Travels Back to Nero’s Rome in Misconceived Historical Fantasy

Robert Schwentke directs a strong international cast that also includes Mary-Louise Parker, Geraldine Chaplin, Alexander Fehling and Todd Xander.

‘Kiss the Future’ Review: Stirring Doc Depicts How U2 Inspired War-Torn Sarajevo

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are among the producers of this documentary about the underground music scene during the Siege of Sarajevo and U2's 1997 concert there.

‘Disco Boy’ Review: A Fierce Franz Rogowski Can’t Save This Pretension-Plagued Debut

The rising German star plays a soldier in the French Foreign Legion who meets a rebel in the Niger Delta, with deadly results, in Giacomo Abbruzzese's feature debut.