The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the first titles selected for its Panorama section at the upcoming in-person edition that takes place February 16-26. (Scroll down for the full list)
Among the highlights are Tina Satter’s debut feature Reality starring Euphoria and The White Lotus’ Sydney Sweeney and focusing on the arrest of the American whistle-blower Reality Winner.
Jennifer Reeder is also in with Perpetrator, described as a subversive film that throws conventions to the wind. Kiah McKirnan and Alicia Silverstone star.
Willem Dafoe turns up as an art thief in Vasilis Katsoupis’ Inside. And, Ira Sachs is back with Passages, starring Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulous.
Of the 14 films selected, eleven are world premieres.
Here’s the full list announced today
Al Murhaqoon (The Burdened)
by Amr Gamal | with Khaled Hamdan, Abeer Mohammed, Samah Alamrani, Awsam Abdulrahman, Shahd Algonfedy
Yemen / Sudan / Saudi Arabia 2023
Panorama | World Premiere
When Isra’a discovers she is expecting another baby amid the civil war in Yemen, she and her husband decide she should have an abortion. But this creates enormous difficulties – in their relationship and elsewhere. A moving story from an all-too-often forgotten crisis region.
Au cimetière de la pellicule (The Cemetery of Cinema)
by Thierno Souleymane Diallo
France / Senegal / Guinea / Saudi Arabia 2023
Panorama Dokumente | World Premiere | Debut film | Documentary Form
Thierno Souleymane Diallo sets out with his camera in search of the birth of filmmaking in Guinea. Charming and determined, he traces his country’s film heritage and history and reveals the importance of film archives.
El Castillo (The Castle)
by Martín Benchimol | with Justina Olivo, Alexia Olivo
Argentina / France 2023
Panorama | World Premiere
The inheritance from her former boss is a poisoned chalice for Indigenous housekeeper Justina: a huge, derelict mansion in the back of beyond. Justina’s daughter Alexia would much prefer to return to Buenos Aires and work as a car mechanic. A dark fairy tale.
Hello Dankness
by Soda Jerk
Australia 2022
Panorama | International Premiere | Debut film
Assembling hundreds of film clips and media images, artist duo Soda Jerk creates a startling narrative about the changes undergone by American society since Trump, while relishing in reflecting on contemporary cultural values.
Inside
by Vasilis Katsoupis | with Willem Dafoe
Greece / Germany / Belgium 2023
Panorama | World Premiere
After a robbery goes wrong, art thief Nemo finds himself trapped in a swanky New York penthouse. Locked in by the high-end security system and surrounded by nothing but priceless works of art, he must fight to survive.
Iron Butterflies
by Roman Liubyi
Ukraine / Germany 2023
Panorama Dokumente | European Premiere | Documentary Form
This lesson in political revelation focuses on the shooting down of the Malaysian passenger jet MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. A meticulous, investigative exposé that lays bare the mechanisms of Russian warfare.
Passages
by Ira Sachs | with Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulous
France 2023
Panorama | European Premiere
On the last day of his shoot in Paris, film director Tomas sleeps with a woman and proudly tells his husband about it. A passionate, jealous and narcissistic relationship unfolds between Tomas, Agathe and Martin.
Perpetrator
by Jennifer Reeder | with Kiah McKirnan, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Lowell, Melanie Liburd, Ireon Roach
USA 2023
Panorama | World Premiere
On her 18th birthday, tough-girl Jonny eats a cake baked by her aunt according to a magical family recipe and goes through a radical metamorphosis. As several classmates go missing, a bloody coming-of-age story takes its course.
Reality
by Tina Satter | with Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchánt Davis
USA 2023
Panorama | World Premiere | Debut film
Director Tina Satter presents a snapshot of recent US history and, using unedited original dialogue from an FBI recording, re-enacts the 2017 search of whistle-blower Reality Winner’s home as a tense chamber piece.
Silver Haze
by Sacha Polak | with Vicky Knight, Esmé Creed-Miles, Charlotte Knight, Archie Brigden, Angela Bruce
Netherlands / United Kingdom 2023
Panorama | World Premiere
Franky comes from a rough East London neighbourhood and works as a nurse. When she falls head over heels in love with her patient Florence, her life changes profoundly. A film about coming to terms with the past, social origins and the need to belong.
La Sirène (The Siren)
by Sepideh Farsi
France / Germany / Luxembourg / Belgium 2023
Panorama | World Premiere | Animation
Iran, 1980. After an Iraqi missile strike, the oil metropolis of Abadan descends into chaos. Fourteen-year-old Omid, who works as a food delivery boy, is searching for his missing brother – and for an escape route out of the besieged city.
Stams
by Bernhard Braunstein | with Sophia Waldauf, Martina Ambrosi, Eva-Maria Kofler, Pascal Mair, Kevin Kirchebner
Austria 2023
Panorama Dokumente | World Premiere | Documentary Form
The ski boarding school in Stams in the Tyrolean Alps is regarded as a training ground for the best of the best. The goal: the Olympic games. Over the course of one academic year, Bernhard Braunstein takes a highly concentrated look at the young skiing elite as they follow their meticulously timed daily training regime.
Stille Liv (The Quiet Migration)
by Malene Choi | with Cornelius Won Riedel-Clausen, Bjarne Henriksen, Bodil Jørgensen, Clara Thi Thanh Heilmann Jensen, Dawid Ściupidro
Denmark 2023
Panorama | World Premiere
Carl is expected someday to take over his parents’ agribusiness in a rural backwater in Denmark. But, as an adopted child, he also longs to learn more about his South Korean heritage. A film about otherness and finding your own place in life.
Transfariana
by Joris Lachaise
France / Colombia 2023
Panorama Dokumente | World Premiere | Documentary Form
An unexpected love story between a trans former sex worker and a FARC rebel begins in a Colombian prison and leads to an alliance in solidarity between trans activists and FARC militants who have laid down their arms.
