Distribution Watch: Berlinale 2025

Tracking which titles have North American distribution from the 2025 edition of the Berlinale

Reflection in a Dead Diamond (dirs. Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani) © Cattet-Forzani

Last updated: February 11, 2025.

Let me start by linking to Strike Germany and Film Workers for Palestine, who have both called for a strike against this year’s Berlinale in response to the German government’s anti-Palestinian actions (you can read the details on their respective websites). Last year’s festival turned out to be contentious and I expect this year’s will be no different. Now on to the usual spiel.

I’ll try my best to track what titles in the 2025 programme have North American distribution, although my efforts will never be 100% perfect. Not every title gets a press release and coverage when they get acquired, and multiple films will likely have the fate of quietly dropping on some streaming service further down the line (unfortunately quite a few films, especially in the Forum, will probably never get seen outside of the festival circuit).

Titles listed below in bold will have a confirmed distributor in Canada and/or the United States. The name(s) of the distributor will be listed in brackets and hyperlinked to a source. Sometimes a film might have distribution in one country and not the other, so I’ll make that distinction where necessary.

With a new programming team this year, the Encounters section is no more (RIP to one of the few interesting parts of today’s major film festivals). There’s a new section called Perspectives that’s dedicated to debut features. I won’t include TV series or shorts but I’ve decided to stop excluding older titles, and I will denote those by putting them in italics with their original release/premiere year in brackets.

Again, I try my best with this, so if I’m missing something you can leave a comment or contact me directly and I’ll add anything that’s missing.

Competition

• Ari (dir. Léonor Serraille)

• Blue Moon (dir. Richard Linklater) [Sony Pictures Classics]

• Dreams (dir. Michel Franco)

• Dreams (Sex Love) (dir. Dag Johan Haugerud) [Strand Releasing]

• Girls on Wire (dir. Vivian Qu)

• Hot Milk (dir. Rebecca Lenkiewicz) [IFC Films]

• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (dir. Mary Bronstein) [A24]

• Kontinental ‘25 (dir. Radu Jude)

• Living the Land (dir. Huo Meng)

• Mother’s Baby (dir. Johanna Moder)

• Reflection in a Dead Diamond (dirs. Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani) [Shudder]

• The Blue Trail (dir. Gabriel Mascaro)

• The Ice Tower (dir. Lucile Hadžihalilović)

• The Message (dir. Iván Fund)

• The Safe House (dir. Lionel Baier)

• Timestamp (dir. Kateryna Gornostai)

• What Does that Nature Say to You (dir. Hong Sangsoo)

• What Marielle Knows (dir. Frédéric Hambalek)

• Yunan (dir. Ameer Fakher Eldin)

Perspectives

• BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (dir. Kahlil Joseph)

• Eel (dir. Chu Chun-Teng)

• Growing Down (dir. Bálint Dániel Sós)

• How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World (dir. Florian Pachlatko)

• Little Trouble Girls (dir. Urška Djukić)

• Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) (dir. Joel Alfonso Vargas)

• Punching the World (dir. Constanze Klaue)

• Shadowbox (dirs. Tanushree Das & Saumyananda Sahi)

• That Summer in Paris (dir. Valentine Cadic)

• The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box) (dir. Ernesto Martinez Bucio)

• The Settlement (dir. Mohamed Rashad)

• Two Times João Liberada (dir. Paula Tomás Marques)

• We Believe You (dirs. Arnaud Dufeys & Charlotte Devillers)

• Where the Night Stands Still (dir. Liryc Dela Cruz)

Berlinale Special

• A Complete Unknown (dir. James Mangold) [Searchlight Pictures]

• A Letter to David (dir. Tom Shoval)

• After This Death (dir. Lucio Castro)

• All I Had Was Nothingness (dir. Guillaume Ribot)

• Ancestral Visions of the Future (dir. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese)

• Das Deutsche Volk (dir. Marcin Wierzchowski)

• Friendship's Death (dir. Peter Wollen) {1987}

• Honey Bunch (dirs. Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli)

• Islands (dir. Jan-Ole Gerster)

• Köln 75 (dir. Ido Fluk)

• Late Shift (dir. Petra Volpe)

• Leibniz – Chronicle of a Lost Painting (dir. Edgar Reitz)

• The Light (dir. Tom Tykwer)

• Lurker (dir. Alex Russell) [MUBI]

• Mickey 17 (dir. Bong Joon Ho) [Warner Bros]

• My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow (dir. Julia Loktev)

• No Beast. So Fierce. (dir. Burhan Qurbani)

• Shoah (dir. Claude Lanzmann) {1985} [IFC Films]

• The Best Mother in the World (dir. Anna Muylaert)

• The Old Woman with the Knife (dir. Min Kyu-dong)

• The Thing with Feathers (dir. Dylan Southern)

• Yella (dir. Christian Petzold) {2007} [Cinema Guild]

Panorama

• 1001 Frames (dir. Mehrnoush Alia)

• Bedrock (dir. Kinga Michalska)

• Beginnings (dir. Jeanette Nordahl)

• Cicadas (dir. Ina Weisse)

• Confidante (dirs. Çağla Zencirci & Guillaume Giovanetti)

• Deaf (dir. Eva Libertad)

• Delicious (dir. Nele Mueller-Stöfen) [Netflix]

• Dreamers (dir. Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor)

• Dreams in Nightmares (dir. Shatara Michelle Ford)

• Home Sweet Home (dir. Frelle Petersen)

• Hysteria (dir. Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay)

• I Want It All (dir. Luzia Schmid)

• Khartoum (dirs. Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timeea M Ahmed & Phil Cox)

• Lesbian Space Princess (dirs. Emma Hough Hobbs & Leela Varghese)

• Letters from Wolf Street (dir. Arjun Talwar)

• Looking for Langston (dir. Isaac Julien) {1989}

• Magic Farm (dir. Amalia Ulman) [MUBI]

• Monk in Pieces (dir. Billy Shebar)

• Night State (dirs. Marcio Reolon & Filipe Matzembacher)

• Olmo (dir. Fernando Eimbcke)

• Once Again... (Statues Never Die) (dir. Isaac Julien)

• Paul (dir. Denis Côté)

• Peter Hujar’s Day (dir. Ira Sachs) [Sideshow/Janus]

• Queerpanorama (dir. Jun Li)

• Satanic Cow (dir. Rosa von Praunheim)

• Silent Sparks (dir. Ping Chu)

• The Good Sister (dir. Sarah Miro Fischer)

• The Heart Is a Muscle (dir. Imran Hamdulay)

• The Incredible Snow Woman (dir. Sébastien Betbeder)

• The Longing (dir. Toshizo Fujiwara)

• The Moelln Letters (dir. Martina Priessner)

• The Ugly Stepsister (dir. Emilie Blichfeldt) [Shudder]

• Under the Flags, the Sun (dir. Juanjo Pereira)

• Welcome Home Baby (dir. Andreas Prochaska)

• Yalla Parkour (dir. Areeb Zuaiter)

Forum

• 2024 (2023) (dir. Stefan Hayn)

• After Dreaming (dir. Christine Haroutounian)

• Cadet (dir. Adilkhan Yerzhanov)

• Canone effimero (dir. Gianluca De Serio, Massimiliano De Serio)

• Colossal (dir. Nayibe Tavares-Abel)

• Eighty Plus (dir. Želimir Žilnik)

• Evidence (dir. Lee Anne Schmitt)

• Fwends (dir. Sophie Somerville)

• Holding Liat (dir. Brandon Kramer)

• Houses (dir. Veronica Nicole Tetelbaum)

• If You Are Afraid You Put Your Heart into Your Mouth and Smile (dir. Marie Luise Lehner)

• Iracema {1975} (dir. Jorge Bodanzky, Orlando Senna)

• Janine Moves to the Country (dir. Jan Eilhardt)

• little boy (dir. James Benning)

• Minimals in a Titanic World (dir. Philbert Aimé Mbabazi Sharangabo)

• My Armenian Phantoms (dir. Tamara Stepanyan)

• Our Time Will Come (dir. Ivette Löcker)

• Palliative Care Unit (dir. Philipp Döring)

• Pride & Attitude (dir. Gerd Kroske)

• Punku (dir. J.D. Fernández Molero)

• Queer as Punk (dir. Yihwen Chen)

• Scars of a Putsch (dir. Nathalie Borgers)

• SIRENS CALL (dir. Miri Ian Gossing, Lina Sieckmann)

• Spring Night (dir. Kang Mi-ja)

• The Kiss of the Grasshopper (dir. Elmar Imanov)

• The Lie (dir. Katrin Seybold, Melanie Spitta) {1987}

• The Long Road to the Director's Chair (dir. Vibeke Løkkeberg)

• The Memory of Butterflies (dir. Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski)

• The Sense of Violence (dir. Kim Mooyoung)

• The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov (dir. Yuri Semashko)

• The Trio Hall (dir. Su Hiu-yu)

• Tiger’s Pond (dir. Natesh Hegde)

• Time to the Target (dir. Vitaly Mansky)

• Underground (dir. Kaori Oda)

• What’s next? (dir. Cao Yiwen)

• When Lightning Flashes Over the Sea (dir. Eva Neyman)

Forum Expanded

• Crash Site/My_Never_Ending_Burial_Plot (dir. Constanze Ruhm)

• Cobalt (dir. Petna Ndaliko Katondolo)

• Lunch Break (dir. Sharon Lockhart) {2008}

• Muito Romântico (dirs. Melissa Dullius & Gustavo John) {2016}

• Purple Sea (dirs. Amel Alzakout & Khaled Abdulwahed) {2020}

• Shayne (dir. Stephan Greene) {2019}

• Special Operation (dir. Oleksiy Radynski)

Generation

• A Story about Fire (dir. Li Wenyu)

• Christy (dir. Brendan Canty)

• Circusboy (dirs. Julia Lemke & Anna Koch)

• Maya, Give Me a Title (dir. Michel Gondry)

• Only on Earth (dir. Robin Petré)

• Our Wildest Days (dir. Vasilis Kekatos)

• Paternal Leave (dir. Alissa Jung)

• Playtime (dir. Lucia Murat)

• Sandbag Dam (dir. Čejen Černić Čanak)

• Seaside Serendipity (dir. Satoko Yokohama)

• Space Cadet (dir. Eric San (aka Kid Koala))

• Sunshine (dir. Antoinette Jadaone)

• Tales from the Magic Garden (dirs. David Súkup, Patrik Pašš, Leon Vidmar & Jean-Claude Rozec)

• Têtes brûlées (dir. Maja-Ajmia Yde Zellama)

• The Botanist (dir. Jing Yi)

• The Nature of Invisible Things (dir. Rafaela Camelo)

• The Tale of Daye’s Family (dir. Karim El Shenawy)

• Village Rockstars 2 (dir. Rima Das)

• Wrong Husband (dir. Zacharias Kunuk)

Berlinale Classics

• Dirty Harry (dir. Don Siegel) {1971} [Warner Bros]

• Dressed in Blue (dir. Antonio Giménez-Rico) {1983} [Altered Innocence]

• Hell's Angels (dirs. Howard Hughes & James Whale) {1930} [Universal Pictures]

• Smile at Last (dirs. Leida Laius & Arvo Iho) {1985}

• Solo Sunny (dir. Konrad Wolf) {1980}

• The Goddess (dir. Wu Yonggang) {1934}

• The Paradine Case (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) {1947}

• The Wife of Seisaku (dir. Yasuzô Masumura) {1965}

Retrospective

• Bloody Friday (dir. Rolf Olsen) {1972}

• Carnations in Aspic (dir. Günter Reisch) {1976}

• Deadlock (dir. Roland Klick) {1970}

• Don’t Cheat, Darling! (dir. Joachim Hasler) {1973}

• Hat Off When You Kiss (dir. Rolf Losansky) {1971}

• Jonathan (dir. Hans W. Geißendörfer) {1970}

• Lady Dracula (dir. Franz Josef Gottlieb) {1978}

• One or the Other of Us (dir. Wolfgang Petersen) {1974}

• Orpheus in the Underworld (dir. Horst Bonnet) {1973}

• Rocker (dir. Klaus Lemke) {1972}

• Spare Parts (dir. Rainer Erler) {1979}

• Strange City (dir. Rudolf Thome) {1972}

• Tenderness of the Wolves (dir. Ulli Lommel) {1973}

• The Brutes (dir. Roger Fritz) {1970}

• The Girls from Atlantis (dir. Eckhart Schmidt) {1970}

Berlin Critics’ Week

• All Quiet at Sunrise (dir. Zhu Xin)

• All We Ever Wanted (dir. Frédéric Jaeger)

• Aoquic Iez In Mexico! Mexico Will No Longer Exist! (dir. Annalisa D. Quadliata Blanco)

• Before You Fade Away Into Nothing (dir. Skinner Myers)

• Casablanca (dir. Adriano Valerio)

• East of Noon (dir. Hala Elkoussy)

• In Her Time (Iris’ Version) (dir. Diane Severin Nguyen)

• Measures for a Funeral (dir. Sofia Bohdanowicz) [Vortex Media for Canada; no US distribution]

• Sleep #2 (dir. Radu Jude)

• Vulcanizadora (dir. Joel Potrykus) [Factory 25]