Berlin Film Festival reveals promising 2025 Competition line-up

The 75th Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the 19 Competition titles and films selected for its new competitive Perspectives strand – which highlights first fiction features.

It’s already looking like one of the most promising line-ups we’ve seen in years.

This year’s Berlinale, helmed for the first time by new director Tricia Tuttle, will feature new films from Richard Linklater (returning to the festival after 2014’s Boyhood), Golden Bear winner Radu Jude and Lucile Hadžihalilović.

Hadžihalilović will present The Ice Tower, a French fantasy drama starring Marion Cotillard. It follows a star of a film production of The Snow Queen who bewitches a young runaway, and is the follow up to her mesmerizing film Evolution (one of our Best Films of the 21st Century) and 2021’s Earwig.

American filmmaker Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon follows the last days of Lorenz Hart, one-half of the songwriting team Rodgers & Hart. It stars Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott and The Substance star Margaret Qualley.

As for Romania’s Radu Jude, who won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2021 with Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, he returns with Kontinental ’25 – a dark comedy which tackles issues like the housing crisis and the rise of nationalism.

Elsewhere, Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You starring Rose Byrne will feature in Competition, as well as Dag Johan Haugerud’s Dreams (Sex Love) – the Norwegian director’s trilogy capper, following his Berlinale and Venice Film Festival-premiering first two chapters Sex and Love.

The only debut feature in Competition is Hot Milk from the UK’s Rebecca Lenkiewicz – the adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel which explores the knotty complexities of motherhood.

There is only one documentary in Competition this year: Timestamp from Ukrainian director Kateryna Gornostai, who won Berlin’s Crystal Bear in 2021 with Stop-Zemlia. Her latest film chronicles the educators in wartime.

It’s looking like a strong year for French productions and co-productions, with five Competition titles vying for the Golden Bear this year: Ari by Léonor Serraille; The Safe House by Lionel Baier and the final film by the late French comedian Michel Blanc; Reflection In A Dead Diamond by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, which promises “sex and ultraviolence” according to today’s press conference; the aforementioned Timestamp by Kateryna Gornostai; and The Ice Tower by Lucile Hadžihalilović.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Berlinale without the returning director Hong Sang-soo. The South Korean director returns with his eighth film to compete for the Golden Bear: What Does That Nature Say To You. The director has already won four Silver Bear’s in the past five years with The Woman Who Ran, Introduction, The Novelist’s Film and A Traveler’s Needs.

Of note is that eight of the 19 films in Competition are directed or co-directed by female-identifying directors – up from six last year. This once again shows that the Berlinale is head and shoulders above the likes of Cannes and Venice in terms of gender representation in Competition strands.

As previously announced, the festival will open with Tom Tykwer’s Special Gala Out of Competition film The Light. There will also be Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi dark comedy Mickey 17 in the same section – his first film since the Oscar-winning Parasite.

US director Todd Haynes will preside over this year’s jury.

Stay tuned to Euronews Culture for our full Berlinale 2025 preview.

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Here is the Berlinale 2025 line-up:

Competition

• Ari (Fr-Bel) – Léonor Serraille  

• Blue Moon (US-Ire) – Richard Linklater  

• The Safe House (Switz-Luxe-Fr) – Lionel Baier  

• Dreams (Mex) – Michel Franco  

• Dreams (Sex Love) (Nor) – Dag Johan Haugerud 

• What Does that Nature Say to You (S Kor) – Hong Sangsoo  

• Hot Milk (UK) – Rebecca Lenkiewicz  

• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (US) – Mary Bronstein 

• Kontinental ’25 (Rom) – Radu Jude  

• The Message (Arg-Sp) – Iván Fund  

• Mother’s Baby (Austria-Switz-Ger) – Johanna Moder  

• The Blue Trail (Bra-Mex-Chile-Neth) – Gabriel Mascaro  

• Reflection In A Dead Diamond (Bel-Lux-It-Fr) – Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani 

• Living The Land (China) – Huo Meng  

• Timestamp (Ukr-Lux-Neth-Fr) – Kateryna Gornostai  

• The Ice Tower (Fr-Ger) – Lucile Hadžihalilović  

• What Marielle Knows (Ger) – Frédéric Hambalek  

• Girls On Wire (China) – Vivian Qu  

• Yunan (Ger-Can-It-Palestine-Qat-Jor-Saudi) – Ameer Fakher Eldin

Perspectives

• The Settlement (Egy-Fr-Ger-Saudi-Qat) – Mohamed Rashad  

• Shadowbox (India-France-USA-Spain) – Tanushree Das, Saumyananda Sahi  

• BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (US) – Kahlil Joseph  

• Where the Night Stands Still (It-Phil) – Liryc Dela Cruz  

• The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box) (Mex) – Ernesto Martinez Bucio  

• Two Times João Liberada (Port) – Paula Tomás Marques  

• Eel (Tai) – Chu Chun-Teng  

• How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World (Austria) – Florian Pochlatko 

• Little Trouble Girls (Slovenia-It-Cro-Ser) – Urška Đukić 

• Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) (US) – Joel Alfonso Vargas 

• Growing Down (Hun) – Bálint Dániel Sós  

• Punching The World (Ger) – Constanze Klaue  

• We believe You (Bel) – Arnaud Dufeys, Charlotte Devillers  

• That Summer In Paris (Fra) – Valentine Cadic

Berlinale Special Gala

• The Light (Ger) – Tom Tykwer (Opening Film)

• Mickey 17 (US-S Kor-UK) – Bong Joon Ho 

• The Thing With Feathers (UK) – Dylan Southern 

• After This Death (US) – Lucio Castro  

• A Complete Unknown (US) – James Mangold 

• Late Shift (Switz-Ger) – Petra Volpe  

• Islands (Ger) – Jan-Ole Gerster  

• Köln 75 (Ger-Pol-Bel) – Ido Fluk  

• Lurker (US-It) – Alex Russell

Berlinale Special Series Gala

• The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Australia) – Justin Kurzel

Berlinale Special

• Ancestral Visions of the Future (Fr-Lesotho-Ger-Saudi) – Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese  

• Das Deutsche Volk (Ger) – Marcin Wierzchowski  

• Honey Bunch (Can) – Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli  

• All I Had Was Nothingness (Fr) – Guillaume Ribot  

• No Beast. So Fierce. (Ger-Pol-Fr) – Burhan Qurbani  

• Leibniz – Chronicle of a Lost Painting (Ger) – Edgar Reitz, Anatol Schuster  

• The Best Mother in the World (Bra-Arg) – Anna Muylaert  

• A Letter To David (Isr-US) – Tom Shoval  

• My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow (US) – Julia Loktev 

• The Old Woman With The Knife (S Kor) – Min Kyu-dong  

• Shoah (Fr) – Claude Lanzmann

Berlinale Special – Honorary Golden Bear

• Friendship’s Death (UK) – Peter Wollen

The 75th Berlin International Film Festival takes place between 13-23 February.