Screen staff preview all of the titles in the Berlin film festival’s Special Presentation, Special Gala and Special Midnight strands, which this year include films from Gore Verbinski, Maite Alberdi and Shahrbanoo Sadat. The festival runs February 12-22.
Special Presentation
A Child Of My Own (Mex)
Dir. Maite Alberdi
The two-time Oscar-nominated Chilean documentarian behind The Mole Agent and The Eternal Memory took a sabbatical from non-fiction with 2024 period drama In Her Place. Now she is back in the documentary fold with her first Mexican production, about a woman who longs to become a mother and under pressure fakes her pregnancy — an ill-advised lie that spirals out of control into a national scandal. Gato Grande is the production company, and filming took place in stages from October 2022 to March 2025 in Mexico City and Veracruz.
Contact: Netflix
Tutu (UK)
Dir. Sam Pollard
Previously unseen archive footage and first-hand accounts from those who knew him best combine to chart the life story of South African Anglican bishop, theologian and anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate died in 2021 aged 90 and is considered a key figure in ending South African apartheid. Contributors include activist filmmakers Roger Friedman and Benny Gool, who spent years following Tutu, as well as South African politician Mamphela Ramphele, one of Tutu’s closest confidantes. Producers are HiddenLight and Universal Pictures Content Group, with worldwide distribution rights available.
Contact: Cinetic
Wax & Gold (Austria-It)
Dir. Ruth Beckermann
Berlinale regular Beckermann returns with her latest documentary, filmed in Ethiopia. She stays in a hotel built by Emperor Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa, using it as a vantage point to explore the thoughts and emotions of a European woman in a place that feels both familiar and foreign. The film blends archive footage with conversations on the ground about Ethiopia’s past and present. In 2024, Beckermann’s Favoriten opened the Berlinale’s Encounters section, Mutzenbacher won Encounters’ best film prize in 2022, and her doc The Waldheim Waltz premiered in Forum in 2018.
Contact: Celluloid Dreams
Who Killed Alex Odeh? (US)
Dirs. Jason Osder, William Lafi Youmans
This documentary from Parked Bus Productions and Naked Edge Films won Sundance’s US Documentary special jury award for journalistic excellence last month and has its international premiere in Berlin. Activist and former rapper Youmans partners with Osder, whose last feature was the 2013 Hot Docs selection Let The Fire Burn. Who Killed Alex Odeh? examines the assassination of the Palestinian American activist in Southern California 40 years ago, and the quest for justice that followed.
Contact: Dogwoof
Special Galas
The Blood Countess (Austria-Lux-Ger)
Dir. Ulrike Ottinger
Isabelle Huppert stars as the titular blood countess in this gothic horror with elements of mystery and dark humour from renowned New German Cinema director Ottinger. After the Blood Countess wakes from her long beauty sleep, she and her maid embark on a baroque quest through Vienna for the red elixir of life — but hot on their heels are a vegetarian nephew, his psychotherapist, two vampirologists and a police inspector. The ensemble cast includes Birgit Minichmayr, Thomas Schubert and Lars Eidinger. The screenplay was co-written by Ottinger and Austrian playwright and Nobel Prize-winning author Elfriede Jelinek, known for The Piano Teacher. Ottinger received a lifetime achievement award at the Berlinale in 2020.
Contact: Magnify Films
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (US-Ger)
Dir. Gore Verbinski
This South Africa-shot science-fiction adventure comedy has much to spark interest: a first feature in nine years for director Verbinski; a topical subject, as a man from the future travels to the past to combat a rogue AI with the help of patrons at a diner; and a cast including Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry and Juno Temple. The film debuted at Texas’s Fantastic Fest in September 2025, and Briarcliff Entertainment will release in the US on February 13 — the Berlinale’s first weekend.
Contact: north.five.six
Heysel 85 (Belg-Neth-Ger)
Dir. Teodora Ana Mihai
Belgian Romanian director Mihai’s feature debut La Civil played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2021. She returns with this film about the Heysel football stadium disaster, where 39 people lost their lives during the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus in 1985. It stars Violet Braeckman (a 2026 European Film Promotion Shooting Star) as the daughter of the mayor of Brussels and Matteo Simoni as a journalist drawn into the heart of the tragedy. Heysel 85 is produced by Hans Everaert for Menuetto, in co-production with Belgium’s Les Films du Fleuve, the Netherlands’ Topkapi Films and Germany’s Leitwolf.
Contact: Marie Lamboeuf, Salaud Morisset
No Good Men (Ger-Fr-Nor-Den-Afg)
Dir. Shahrbanoo Sadat
Described by Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle as “one of the most exciting voices in world cinema”, Afghan director Sadat has landed the festival’s opening slot with her third feature. Based on real events, it follows Naru, the only camerawoman at Kabul TV, who is convinced there are no good men in Afghanistan. But sparks fly and she begins to question her beliefs when reporter Qodrat takes her on assignment just before the Taliban’s return. Sadat’s 2016 feature Wolf And Sheep and 2019’s The Orphanage both played in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, with the former winning the section’s top prize.
Contact: Lucky Number
The Only Living Pickpocket In New York (US)
Dir. Noah Segan
John Turturro stars in last month’s Sundance Premieres selection about a career pickpocket wrestling with the realities of the digital world, who races across the city to recover stolen goods after a theft goes wrong. The crime thriller receives its international premiere at the Berlinale and shot in spring 2025, with MRC financing and longtime partner T-Street producing. Segan directs his third feature and has acted in several films by Rian Johnson, T-Street co-founding partner and Knives Out director, dating back to 2005’s Sundance breakout Brick.
Contact: Jaycie Luo, MRC
The Testament Of Ann Lee (US-UK)
Dir. Mona Fastvold
Fastvold’s musical epic about the titular religious leader who founded the Shaker movement in the US in the late 1770s premiered in Venice Competition, where it was picked up for most of the world by Searchlight Pictures. The distributor gave it an awards season push, in particular for Amanda Seyfried’s fiercely committed performance in the lead role. Christopher Abbott and Thomasin McKenzie co-star, and the film was produced by Kaplan Morrison, Intake Films, Proton Cinema and Mid March Media. It has its German premiere at the Berlinale.
Contact: Charades
The Weight (US-Ger)
Dir. Padraic McKinley
US director McKinley has worked extensively as an editor, on features including 17 Again and Charlie St. Cloud, and series including Torchwood. His directorial debut is set during the Great Depression, as a veteran is hired to smuggle a gold fortune across 100 miles of wilderness. It comes to Berlin from a Sundance world premiere and leading the cast is Ethan Hawke, who returns to the Berlinale a year after Blue Moon, for which he is Oscar and Bafta nominated. The Weight is a US-Germany co-production, and shot in Bavaria.
Contact: WME Independent
Special Midnight
The Ballad Of Judas Priest (US)
Dirs. Sam Dunn, Tom Morello
Rage Against The Machine guitarist Morello and documentarian Dunn pay homage to the UK rockers who rose from humble origins in Birmingham to become the legendary band behind such heavy metal staples as ‘Breaking The Law’ and ‘You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’. Banger Films produces, and Sony Music Vision and Epic Records are among the executive producers, with Sony Music Vision distributing for worldwide rights holder Sony Music Entertainment.
Contact: Sony Music Entertainment
Saccharine (Australia)
Dir. Natalie Erika James
This supernatural body horror centres on a medical student who is terrorised by a sinister force after taking part in an obscure weight-loss craze: eating human ashes. The cast is led by Midori Francis (Grey’s Anatomy), Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake$) and Madeleine Madden (The Wheel Of Time). It marks the third feature from James after acclaimed 2020 debut Relic and 2024’s Apartment 7A. Independent Film Company (IFC) and Shudder acquired the title for North America and the UK ahead of its world premiere at Sundance last month.
Contact: XYZ Films
Sleep No More (Indo-Sing-Japan-Ger-Fr)
Dir. Edwin
Social realism meets genre horror in this story of two factory workers whose lives unravel when a dark figure begins to possess the bodies of labourers deprived of rest. Indonesian director Edwin is known for Blind Pig Who Wants To Fly, which won the Fipresci prize at Rotterdam in 2009, and Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2021. Producers include Palari Films and Beacon Film for Indonesia, Singapore’s Giraffe Pictures, Japan’s Hassaku Lab, Germany’s In Good Company and France’s Apsara Films.
Contact: Showbox
Profiles by Ellie Calnan, Ben Dalton, Tim Dams, Elaine Guerini, Jeremy Kay, Rebecca Leffler, Michael Rosser, Matt Schley, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong
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