Films by Sepideh Farsi, Jennifer Reeder, Tina Satter, Sacha Polak, Malene Choi and Ira Sachs are among the first 14 films selected for the Panorama line-up of the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. In the Generation program, the first 18 films confirmed so far include feature film debuts of Antonio Bigni, Domien Huyghe, Jenna Hasse, Sofia Auza, Zeno Graton, Carla Subirana and Jhi Wei Jow.

In Panorama, the film collective Babylon’13, which includes director Roman Liubyi, completed their documentary Iron Butterflies during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This film uncovers the complex tragedy of the war with forensic precision. In her stirring animated film La Sirène, Iranian director Sepideh Farsi depicts the fateful first Iraq-Iran war, the effects of which can still be felt in Iranian society today. In Al Murhaqoon, director Amr Gamal focuses on the looming decline of a middle-class family, in a Yemen ravaged by civil war, where an unwanted pregnancy provokes many questions. All three films use their different stylistic approaches to illuminate acts of war in various periods – as well as the international repercussions and inevitable consequences these conflicts have for their civil societies.

US indie cinema is represented by Tina Satter’s debut film Reality focuses on the arrest of the American whistle-blower Reality Winner, and Jennifer Reeder’s Perpetrator.

Art thief Nemo fights for sheer survival in Inside by Vasilis Katsoupis. But the merciless security system of a luxury apartment is no match for the great Willem Dafoe. Who is outperforming whom here?

Among the topics explored from a documentary perspective are a reappraisal of the film-historical legacy of the West African country of Guinea in Au cimetière de la pellicule by Thierno Souleymane Diallo; the trans*FARC alliance in Joris Lachaise’s engaging long-term observational project Transfariana; and the everyday life of the young pupils in the Stams ski boarding school in Bernhard Braunstein’s eponymous cinematic portrait.

Generations program include the Iranian film Darvazeye royaha (Dreams’ Gate) following young Kurdish women in their battle for autonomy and against the Islamic State, contradicting heroic male war iconography.  Waking Up in Silence observes Ukrainian refugee children as they make a transitional place their home: a former military barrack whose walls tell about German history. Documentary essays take a look at more personal spaces: Crushed puts the messy feeling of irrepressible infatuation into cinematic order, and in To Write from Memory, Emory Chao Johnson reflects on their own transition and insists on the right to bodily autonomy and personal perception.

In L’Amour du monde (Longing for the World) a teenager caught between caring for a strong-willed child and fascination with an older fisherman finds a new view onto herself in the process. In Adolfo, two lost souls converge and follow their very real feelings to imaginary places over the course of a night. Le paradis (The Lost Boys) is the story of young love behind bars, looking at prison not only as a social space, but equally as a bodily, physical one. The Czech animation Deniska umřela (Dede is Dead) creates a space for remembrance and grief over a beloved pet, and in Aaaah !, many individual voices join to form a collective scream about the joyful insanity of growing up.

Panorama

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.

Generation

Aaaah !
by Osman Cerfon
France 2023
Generation Kplus | International Premiere | Animation | Short film
The tumultuous school day is filled with cries of „Aaaah!“: cries of anger, of boredom, of joy and surprise – in short, the full spectrum of young emotions. A charmingly grotesque animated short about an uproar in a world that dances to the tune of the adults.

Adolfo
by Sofía Auza | with Juan Daniel García Treviño, Rocío de la Mañana
USA / Mexico 2023
Generation 14plus | World Premiere | Debut film
When Momo, Hugo and his cactus, Adolfo, meet one night, they are heading in opposite directions. Their peculiar encounter will not only magically change the course of their lives, but also encourage them to warmly embrace the beauty of the unexpected.

L’ Amour du monde (Longing for the World)
by Jenna Hasse | with Clarisse Moussa, Esin Demircan, Marc Oosterhoff
Switzerland 2023
Generation Kplus | World Premiere | Debut film
When teenager Margaux bonds with seven year old Juliette and a local fisherman, her summer holidays turn upside down. An unusual friendship, where Margaux experiences tenderness and play and discovers a new way to understand herself.

Antes de Madrid (Before Madrid)
by Ilén Juambeltz, Nicolás Botana | with Alejo Martínez, Agustina Castaño
Uruguay 2022
Generation 14plus | International Premiere | Short film
Today is their last chance to have sex for the first time. Early tomorrow morning, Micaela is moving to Madrid, Santiago is staying behind in Uruguay. They have it all planned out: a secluded spot, condoms – and getting a few tips from a friend, just in case.

Crushed
by Ella Rocca
Switzerland 2022
Generation 14plus | International Premiere | Documentary Form | Short film
A crush is emotionally very draining: what to do with all the infatuation, especially when it is unrequited? Ella Rocca questions the person they adore, the internet and themselves. The data is sampled into an essay about a very (in)determinate feeling.

Darvazeye royaha (Dreams’ Gate)
by Negin Ahmadi
Iran / Norway / France 2023
Generation 14plus | World Premiere | Debut film | Documentary Form
Driven by the desire to understand her inner truth as a marginalised woman in Iran, Negin Ahmadi embarks on a self-exploring precarious adventure to meet the Kurdish women fighters in the war zone of North Syria.

Deniska umřela (Dede is Dead)
by Philippe Kastner
Czechia 2023
Generation Kplus | World Premiere | Animation | Short film
Dede is dead. Before, she was always around: day and night, outside or inside, nestled in the family’s arms. In his animation, Philippe Kastner shows the darkness of grief and the rich colours of memories and dreams. Dede was not just any dog. She was his dog.

Entre deux sœurs (To Be Sisters)
by Anne-Sophie Gousset, Clément Céard
France 2022
Generation Kplus | International Premiere | Animation | Short film
Two sisters set their world in motion. The older one pulls the younger one along: through the playroom, childhood, and from frame to frame in the animation. The younger one follows until she can determine the direction herself. She now takes her sister with her.

Helt super (Just Super)
by Rasmus A. Sivertsen | with Hennika Eggum Huuse, Todd Monrad Vistven, Johannes Kjærnes, Tobias Santelmann, Kari Simonsen
Norway 2022
Generation Kplus | International Premiere | Animation
Neither acrobatic nor athletic, Hedvig is probably too clumsy to become a superheroine. In order to be able to follow in the footsteps of her father Super Lion, she accepts the challenge of convincing her skeptical environment of the opposite.

Infantaria (Infantry)
by Laís Santos Araújo | with Ana Luiza Ferreira, Karolayne Rayssa, Francisco Nunes, Ane Olivia
Brazil 2022
Generation 14plus | International Premiere | Short film
In opulent lush scenery a birthday party is being held. Joana longs for her period to start, her brother Dudu misses his absent father, Verbena looks for a way out. Fulfilling your dreams can come with pain, in this magical realist glimpse from Brazil.

Míng tian bi zuo tian chang jiu (Tomorrow Is a Long Time)
by Jow Zhi Wei | with Leon Dai, Edward Tan
Singapore / Taiwan / France / Portugal 2023
Generation 14plus | World Premiere
Acts of violence bring repercussions for exterminator Chua and his son Meng, who has been under pressure from bullies. Military service offers Meng escape into the jungle, an unknown world which could bring him closer to understanding his own nature.

Nanitic
by Carol Nguyen | with Kylie Le, Van Pham, Ly Pham, Dam Nguyen, Eve Sevigny
Canada 2022
Generation Kplus | International Premiere | Short film
Nine-year-old Trang and her family take care of her dying grandmother. As in an ant colony, each member has an important function. Carol Nguyen sensitively provides insights into the construct of family as a microcosm.

Le paradis (The Lost Boys)
by Zeno Graton | with Khalil Ben Gharbia, Julien de Saint Jean
Belgium / France 2023
Generation 14plus | World Premiere | Debut film
In a youth correctional facility, Joe is preparing his return to society. But William’s arrival turns his desire for freedom into desire of another kind. Behind fences and cell walls, passions begin to play havoc with the need for liberty.

Le proprietà dei metalli (The Properties of Metals)
by Antonio Bigini | with Martino Zaccara, Edoardo Marcucci, David Pasquesi, Antonio Buil Pueyo
Italy 2023
Generation Kplus | World Premiere | Debut film
In an Italian village, where the idyllic beauty of the landscape belies the toughness of life, word has it young Pietro has psychokinetic powers. A tender portrait of a young boy, and an allegory of the science of invisible forces.

Sica
by Carla Subirana | with Thais García Blanco, Núria Prims, Marco Antonio Florido Añón, María Villaverde Ameijeiras
Spain 2023
Generation 14plus | World Premiere
Waiting for answers that don’t seem to come, Sica stares at the waves crashing against the coastal rocks. Her father, a fisherman, drowned in the sea. In an isolated corner of the world, Sica doesn’t lose hope. Even if she needs to go against the current.

To Write from Memory
by Emory Chao Johnson
USA 2023
Generation 14plus | World Premiere | Documentary Form | Short film
A young person’s physical gender transition is steadily progressing, despite their mother’s vocal objections. To Write from Memory is an essay on moving forward, and the inevitability of confronting one’s own past in the process.

Waking Up in Silence
by Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Germany / Ukraine 2023
Generation Kplus | World Premiere | Documentary Form | Short film
A summer’s day in a former German military barrack: children forced to flee Ukraine have found refuge here. In their games, they discover military symbols from the past and link them to their experiences.