FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Brazilian director Gabe Klinger lands in the 76th Berlinale’s Panorama with his third film and second feature, “Isabel”, co-written by its protagonist, Marina Person.

The film marks the first time Klinger shoots in his own town São Paulo as he has only returned to live in his home country recently as he spent most of his life in Chicago, USA.

A journey of a sommelière in crisis?

Isabel is the story of a sommelière in São Paulo’s fine-dining scene who dreams of escaping her controlling boss and ope...

With “A Family”, Dutch director Mees Peijnenburg marks his return to the Berlinale, after previously premiering, back in 2020, “Paradise Drifters”. He’s considered one of the most talented filmmakers of his generation in the Netherlands and for this film, he could count on the participation of rising Dutch talents Finn Vogels as Eli and Celeste Holsheimer as Nina, alongside Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones, Black Book, Instinct) as their mother Maria, and Belgian actor Pieter Embrechts (Instinct, Stromboli, The Balloonist) as Jacob.

The film explores a difficult divorce through a special bu...

“No Good Men”, the third feature film by award-winning Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat opened the 76th Berlinale on February 12, 2026 at the Berlinale Palast.

“No Good Men” follows Shahrbanoo Sadat’s acclaimed works “Wolf and Sheep” (2016) and “Parwareshgah” (The Orphanage, 2019). Both films screened at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and “The Orphanage” was supported by the Berlinale World Cinema Fund.

Together with her most recent film, “No Good Men”, they form the first three parts of a planned five-film series inspired by the female actor Anwar Hashimi’s unpublished autobiography as well as the filmmaker’s own life.

The film, to quot...

From the directors of “Ghostlight”, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, “Mouse” is  premiering at the 76th Berlinale in the Panorama section.

The film is a moving coming-of-age story set in 2002 Arkansas, it is written by O’Sullivan as it is loosely based on her memories of being a high school teenager in her hometown of North Little Rock, Arkansas in the early 2000s.

It stars Katherine Mallen-Kupferer, who previously appeared in the cast of “Ghostlight”, as seventeen year’s old high school senior Minnie and Academy Award nominee and Tony Winner Sophie Okonedo as the mother of Minni...

Following up their 2024 breakout feature Ghostlight, co-directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson return with “Mouse”, premiering in the Panorama section at the 76th Berlinale.

The film, a delicate coming-of-age story starring Katherine Mallen-Kupferer, who previously appeared in the cast of “Ghostlight”, sees the young actress in the role of Minnie, a shy and awkward high school senior grappling with the difficult task of finding herself now that she no longer basks in the reflected light of her best friend, Callie.

Female friendships

“I think female relationships are so fascinating...

After directing two successful short films, “Víctor xx” (2015), winner of the Cannes Cinéfondation Award and “Farrucas” (2021, selected at Clermont-Ferrand, director and screenwriter from Almería, Spain, Ian De La Rosa presents his debut film,  “Iván & Hadoum” at the 76th Berlinale in the Panorama section.

The film just won the Teddy Award for best feature film.

“Iván & Hadoum” is a contemporary love story set in De La Rosa’s and also an heartfelt story of transformation as it delves into the personal journey of its protagonist, Iván (Silver Chicón) as he navigates his gen...

To open the Panorama section of the 76th Berlinale, comes French filmmaker and video artist of Lebanese origin, Danielle Arbid with “Only Rebels Win”.

The film, set in Beirut, stars Hiam Abbass in the role of a middle-class widow with Palestinian roots who falls in love with a Sudanese young man, played by Amine Benrachid.

An Act of Resistance

“Trapped by conventions that do not suit them, this modest and courageous woman and this vulnerable man are fighting against an entire society. Their love itself is a defian...

German director Eva Trobisch is back at the Berlinale, after presenting her second film, “Ivo“, in the Encounters section back in 2024, with “Home Stories“.

Premiering in the 76th competition, the film is a coming of age story that also deals with an East German family and the eternal struggle we all have to face about our identity and the constant contrast between who we are and how we presents ourselves to others, to the outside world.

Father and daughter

“Home Stories” sees Frida Hornemann in the fil...

At the 76th Berlinale, Manon Coubia arrives in the Perspectives section with “Forest High“, her first feature film, shot high in the French Alps, in a mountain hut that remains a functional refuge even as cinema enters the space. Speaking with FRED Film Radio, Coubia frames the project as both a return and a record: she once worked as a guardian herself, and the film is rooted in that familiarity.

The film follows three women who guard the refuge—figures defined by routines, gestures and the constant negotiation between hospitality and isolation. For Coubia, the location is insepa...

Screened in the Forum section of the 76th Berlinale, “Black Lions – Roman Wolves” stands as Haile Gerima’s most ambitious work to date. A central figure of the L.A. Rebellion and New Black Cinema, Gerima spent three decades crafting this 531-minute meditation on Italian colonialism in Ethiopia and its long shadow.

The film retraces the aftermath of Ethiopia’s 1896 victory at Adwa and the fascist invasion launched by Mussolini in 1935, when Italian forces deployed poison gas in a war crime that remains marginal in Italian public discourse. Through archival footage, testimonies of surviving witnesses, and excerpts from his f...

Presented in Competition at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival, “In a Whisper” marks a new chapter in Leyla Bouzid’s cinematic exploration of intimacy and inherited silence. The film follows Lilia as she returns home in Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral. Her family knows little about her life abroad, and nothing about the woman she loves. As relatives gather under one roof and old memories resurface, the film unfolds as both a family drama and a discreet investigation into the uncle’s sudden death.

“The film is about the untold, the taboos, the family secrets that are hid...

After her second film, “Ivo“, premiered in the Encounters section of the Berlinale and received the Heiner Carow Prize in 2024, German director Eva Trobisch is back at the Berlinale, this time in competition, with Home Stories.

A coming-of-age story, a story about identity, a family story

Starring Frida Hornemann and Max Riemelt, the film plays out as a coming-of-age story, as it follows Lea, a sixteen-year-old girl who is selected for a talent show—an experience that forces her to present herself to the world, and to present her family as well.

She c...

At the 76th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, “A New Dawn” stands out as the only animated feature competing for the Golden Bear. Directed by Yoshitoshi Shinomiya, the film marks his feature debut. It signals a personal turning point for an artist who has long been associated with some of the most influential Japanese animated works of the past decade.

With a background in traditional Japanese painting and animation credits on titles such as “Your Name” by Makoto Shinkai and “In This Corner of the World” by Sunao Katabuchi, Shinomiya arrives in Berlin with a project that...

After winning the Silver Bear for Best screenplay in in 2023 with her feature film “Music”, Angela Schanelec returns to the Berlinale competition, at the 76th edition, with her new film “My Wife Cries”.

The film stars actor- director Vladimir Vulević and actress Agathe Bonitzer as a couple in crisis trying to survive betrayal and lack of communication.

Entering Angela Schanelec’s world

Some critics defined german director Angela Schanelec’s films as “strange trips”. Her actors, especially Agathe Bonitzer who already worked with her in Music (2023) confirms that the director has her...

From a master of Italian cinema, Marco Bellocchio and his 1965 directorial debut, I pugni in tasca, comes “Rosebush Pruning”, the new film by Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz, who—after “Firebrand” —returns to directing an English-language feature with an all-star cast including Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, Elena Anaya, Tracy Letts, Elle Fanning, and Pamela Anderson.

Presented in competition at the 76th Berlinale, the film is an outrageous contemporary satire about the absurdity of the traditional patriarchal family.

I pugni in tasca – Fists in the pocket

“Rosebush Pruning” brings together Kar...

“No Salgas”: A Journey  Exploring Identity, Pain, and Hope

Presented at the 76th Berlinale, “No Salgas” by director Victoria Linares Villegas touches on themes such as loss, identity, and fear in youth. From its opening scenes, viewers are invited to reflect on how trauma can trigger both internal and social tension, often expressed through extreme behaviours. The work seeks to connect with young audiences through the story of Liz, a university student who confronts her own ghosts after the death of her girlfriend, in a narrative that blends elements of horror and social realism.

Challenging the Bound...

With “Moscas”, Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke returns to the Berlinale but this time in Competition, with a project whose origins stretch back decades.

“I found this file on my computer from 25 years ago,” Eimbcke recalls. What began as an abandoned draft gradually resurfaced as a viable story, but only once he began working with novelist-turned-screenwriter Vanesa Garnica. Their collaboration, which previously brought Olmo to Panorama, became the decisive factor in finally realising Moscas.

“I needed to work with her,” Eimbcke explains. “She’s very generous. She taught me a lot during the writing process.” With a strong premise in...