Lesbian desire and mother-daughter issues intermix on the beach in Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s debut feature Hot Milk. Playing in Competition.
Hot Milk Loses It At The Beach
Festivals
Reviews and dispatches exploring the best new cinema premiering around the world.
Spring Night. A Sobering Experience.
Han Ye-ri provides an astonishing portrait of alcoholism in Kang Mi-ja’s deeply affect Spring Night, playing in Forum.
Night Stage Creates a New Landscape for the Gay Erotic Thriller
Night Stage by Marcio Reolon, Filipe Matzembacher is a fun De Palma homage from Brazil that reinvents the queer erotic thriller.
Rosenkrantz and the Real Slow Burn
Listening to Peter Hujar’s Day by Ira Sachs makes you wish you’d trade places with Ivan Denisovich. Live from the Panorama at Berlinale.
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.
The Good Sister. A Great Movie.
The moral difficulty of realising your loved one might be a monster is explored in great detail in Sara Miro Fischer’s The Good Sister.re
Home Sweet Home. Giving Care.
The burdens of working as a full-time caregiver are depicted in microscopic detail in Frelle Perersen’s assured Home Sweet Home.
Living The Land. Weddings and Funerals.
The rhythms of village life are perceptively captured in Huo Meng’s intimate epic Living the Land, which is handsomely made but holds the audience at a remove.
Das Licht. Bitte Nicht.
Hitherto undiscovered depths of cringe are plumped in Tom Tykwer’s misguided and offensive familial drama Das Licht (The Light), opening Berlinale 2025.
Move the Berlinale To Charlottenburg
The Berlinale is in a vibe crisis. Here’s how moving the festival to Charlottenburg would make it fun again.