Mini-takes on films seen at the Berlinale, from almost every section, letting you know what to keep an eye on — and what to avoid!
Journey Into Berlinale 2026
Forum
Lust Confidently Finds Its Way Through the Darkness
Ralitza Petrova’s lust is a tale of sex addiction and childhood trauma that, despite its grimness from scene to scene, exerts a curiously optimistic pull.
The Wry Pleasures of Everything Else Is Noise
Nicolás Pereda’s minimalist chamberpiece Everything Else is Noise is at once a slyly pleasurable arthouse experience and a finely-attuned family comedy-drama.
Meet Me at the Forum
With a vital focus on Ukraine, this year’s Forum films offer a wide tent of differing visions from the cutting-edge of experimental cinema.
Real Fwends. How Many of Us?
The natural ebbs and flows of a friendship floating apart are captured in deeply realistic realistic fashion in Sophie Somerville’s delightful debut.
Spring Night. A Sobering Experience.
Han Ye-ri provides an astonishing portrait of alcoholism in Kang Mi-ja’s deeply affecting Spring Night, playing in Forum.
Sirens Call. Mermaids and All.
Sirens Call, Miri Ian Gossing and Lina Sieckmann’s impassioned look at modern-day merfolk, reinvents ancient myths for an increasinly fascist age.
Berlinale 2024: After Hours
From retrospective to classics to special, here are mini-reviews of everything else Journey into Cinema saw at Berlinale 2024.
Polyphonic Russian Voices, Deftly Intercepted
A rigorous and brutal documentation of Russian brutality in Ukraine, Intercepted’s absences stir the worst recesses of the human imagination.
There’s Plenty of Fake News at The Editorial Office
Roman Bondarchuk takes us to a pre-invasion Southern Ukraine in his Forum satire The Editorial Office, filled with weighty topics while lacking cinematic bite.