7 TV Shows Not To Miss at Berlin

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights for German director Christian Petzold’s new film Afire, following its award-winning world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Bill Murray and star Jeannie Berlin set foot on the red carpet of the 2023 SAG Awards holding hands.Murray and Berlin appeared quite close when they arrived together for Sunday's soiree at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The star wore a black tuxedo with a colorful bow tie, while Berlin sported an all-black suit and shades.Berlin, who portrayed Hadassah Fabelman in the Steven Spielberg film, was there for the film's nomination in the Best Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture category.

At certain times in Emily Atef’s eponymous adaptation of Daniela Krien’s novel “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” all one can hear is the irregular breathing of Maria (Marlene Burow). The molecules of oxygen leave the sprawling fields of rural Germany and hastily make their way through the young girl’s lungs, the surge of adrenaline in her bloodstream directly increasing the frequency of respiration.

The films of Jennifer Reeder have an unmistakable vibe. Her acclaimed short films, including “All Small Bodies” and “Crystal Lake,” have been shown on The Criterion Channel, and her feature film “Knives and Skin” has been shown at Berlin and Tribeca.  READ MORE: ‘Inside’ Review: Vasilis Katsoupis’ Heist Thriller With Willem Dafoe Is Formulaic Yet Never Dull [Berlin] Reeder’s films, which have been described as the meeting point between David Lynch and John Hughes, share little in terms of plot, but all bear an unmistakable eeriness, an otherworldliness that could only be Reeder.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlinale competition film “Music” opens with gray clouds racing across the face of a Greek mountain as a storm prepares to break. It is a suitably dramatic prelude to the tumultuous events that will unfold, albeit rendered in an understated manner by German director Angela Schanelec, who won the Berlinale best director award in 2019 for “I Was at Home, But.” As the storm lifts, an abandoned baby boy is rescued a paramedic, who names him Jon. Years later, Jon, now a young man, kills another man, accidentally, and ends up in prison. Here, he is tended to by a female guard, Iro, as his eyesight begins to deteriorate. When he is released, the two get married and have a child. But several years later, his wife discovers a terrible secret.

In 1991, “Street Fighter” made history by introducing the world’s first playable female character in a fighting game, Chun Li. An expert martial artist and Interpol officer, Chun Li has a notorious sense of justice, with much of her arc dedicated to a tireless search for revenge for the wrongful killing of her father.

European Film Market which at one and the same time has underscored the challenges still facing the international independent film business.  Following by way of an industry wrap, a dozen takeaways on the 2023 Berlin market, including its Berlinale Series Market, an ever more building proposition at the Festival.  The Verdict If the European Film Market is anything to go by, broadly, the international movie market is in some ways making a international comeback, despite still vastly challenging circumstances. On Thursday, the EFM reported “record results” of a total of over 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. “It was a rather busy market, with no single must-have, but much mid-sized product,” recognizesConstantin’s Martin Moszkowicz of this year’s Berlin European Film Market, noting that Constantin received about 90 project submissions prior to market, “which is a lot.” “There’s been more deals happening at the EFM than at Sundance and we sense a new vibrancy in the international markets,” says Nick Shumaker, at Anonymous Content’s AC Independent.

Naman Ramachandran Berlin’s just concluded European Film Market (EFM), which had a physical edition this year after two online editions in 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic, has reported “record results” according to the organizers. There were 230 stands and 612 companies from 78 countries and more than 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. Some 773 films were shown in 1,533 screenings, including 647 online screenings and 599 market premieres. The total number of buyers also rose to 1,302. 629 film projects were presented on the new Producers & Project Pages. “After the past two irregular years, we’re pleased to return to the physical in full force, and with a vibrant, bustling and strong market. The exhibition areas at Gropius Bau and the Marriott Hotel were sold out, and the exhibitors reported strong sales and good business. The decision to group all the market happenings together with the Berlinale Series Market and the market screenings at Potsdamer Platz, and to provide the industry with an efficient infrastructure, was extremely well-received by our market participants,” said EFM director Dennis Ruh.

Makoto Shinkai’s latest pic Suzume is the first Japanese animated picture to play in competition at Berlin in two decades. However, Shinkai told a press conference in Berlin that a successful festival run has never been high on his list of priorities.

With her feature debut, “The Chambermaid,” Mexican writer-director Lila Avilés materialized a graceful character study of a hardworking mother. Though enriched via the meaningful interjections of its supporting players, the narrative had a singular focus.

American distribution following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its North American festival premiere later this year. The film tells the story of a a pair of wayward young people who abandon theirnewborn child on a stormy night in the mountains of Greece. Taken in by a family of farmers, Jon grows up without knowing his father or mother. Years later, after a tragic accident, he is sent to prison, where he meets Iro. The two form a connection, expressed through music, that will, by turns, haunt them and uphold them the rest of their days. Freely inspired by the story of Oedipus, Schanelec’s latest is as terrifying as myth and as gentle as a folk song.

Guy Lodge Film Critic On stage, drag artist Aphrodite Banks is a femme fatale: Caked in war paint, with a waterfall of braids whipping around her waist, she’s possessed of the white-hot glare and forthright confidence to match her Amazonian height and bearing. Off stage, as Jules, he’s simply femme: that term for gay men who present or express themselves in a more feminine way, too often used as a slur or a dismissal even by their community brethren. (Open up a cruising app like Grindr and see how frequently “no fems” comes up as a requirement.) The former identity connotes swaggering strength; the latter, to many, delicate weakness. How those associations and stigmas battle each other in one man’s body is the driving conflict in “Femme,” a tense, sometimes startling revenge drama from British freshmen Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping.

There’s a pretty traditional formula that most music documentaries follow. They’ll often center around a standard birth to mainstream success overview, populated with talking heads and contemporaries to contextualize the music, politics, and social scenes.

Director Vasilis Katsoupis tells the audience exactly what “Inside” is about to do from its very first scene. The disembodied voice of Willem Dafoe narrates a childhood fable fished from the depths of memory.

From “Rosa Luxemburg” in 1986 to 2012’s “Hannah Arendt,” the films of Margarethe Von Trotta, an icon of the New German cinema, have put strong female protagonists center-stage in renditions of German history. For her latest, Von Trotta paints a portrait of German poet Ingeborg Bachmann, author of essays, radio dramas, and opera libretti.

The audiences at Berlin International Film Festival tend to be respectful and engaged.

Young Belarusian Aleksei (Franz Rogowski) is impatient for a better life in Europe. Coming from a country under dictatorship and with very strong Russian ties, the political isolation of which has made it suffocating for the younger generations, he is seduced by the idea of a borderless, communal whole where everybody counts for something.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Berlinale Special section of the Berlin Film Festival is a showcase for movies that are intelligent, but less arty than those in the main competition or festival sidebars. And in showcasing mainstream non-English-language films the section is also a springboard for performers who may be big news at home, but who are little-known outside their core markets. Japan’s Nakajima Yuto fits that description perfectly. He has a dual career as a singer with boy band Hey! Say! Jump! and more than a decade as an actor. His acting credits including the Mike Ross role in the Japanese remake of hit U.S. series “Suits.” In his position as a music idol appealing to a volatile, younger demographic, means that selecting acting roles is — normally — something requiring careful consideration.

Femme, a queer thriller written and directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choo Ping, had its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival and stars George Mackay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. The film explores the price of vengeance, the toll it can take on the psyche, and how that pressure can lead to some questionable decisions that may leave the viewer looking for explanations for these character’s actions.