Berlinale published February 6 the entire programme of the 2024 festival running 15-25 February. Documentaries are selected across most festival sections, including two in Berlinale Competition, and dozens more across the Encounters, Forum, Panorama, Generation, Berlinale Special, Retrospective and Short programmes.
“We are particularly proud of this year’s selection which achieves the best possible balance between auteurs we cherish and admire and powerful new voices in the independent cinema landscape. What drives the selection is of course the variety of the stories and their storytellers, but also and even more so the plurality of styles with the goal of showing the extensive possibilities of cinema language,” says Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director, of the overall selection.
Documentaries in Berlinale Competition
- Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky. Austria, 2024. A visually powerful journey into the realm of materials from which human dwellings are made: concrete and its predecessor, stone. Victor Kossakovsky’s cinematic essay explores the fundamental question: How will we inhabit the world of tomorrow? World premiere.
- Dahomey by Mati Diop. France/Senegal/Benin, 2024. In 2021, 26 objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey leave Paris to be returned to present-day Benin. How should these art treasures, stolen from the ancestors, be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence? World premiere.
Documentaries in Encounters
- Favoriten by Ruth Beckermann. Austria, 2024. Ruth Beckermann accompanied a primary school class in Vienna for three years. Despite the difficult conditions at the school, this is an astonishingly cheerful film – about teaching, learning and the often very surprising experiences somewhere in between. World premiere. (Opening film of Encounters section)
- Direct Action by Guillaume Cailleau/Ben Russell. Germany/France, 2024. The film documents the everyday lives of one of the most important activist communities in France in order to see how the success of a radical protest movement can offer a path through the climate crisis facing us all. World premiere.
- Une Famille by Christine Angot. France, 2024. This cinematographic journey of French novelist Christine Angot, who was abused by her father for years, challenges social norms and family perspectives in dealing with incest. World premiere.
Documentaries in Panorama
- Afterwar by Birgitte Stærmose. Denmark/Kosovo/Sweden/Finland. 2024. The children transform into adults before our eyes. Yet they remain in limbo, haunted by memories of the war in Kosovo. Combining raw realism and staged performance, Afterwar is a meditation on the long-term repercussions of war. World premiere.
- À quand l’Afrique? Which Way Africa? by David-Pierre Fila. Republic of the Congo/Angola/Cameroon. 2024. The people of the forests pound their drums to keep their chants alive. Those of the city shriek of “Progress!” Still more rush in to seize the treasures of the land, only to be met by new voices shouting in defiance. World premiere.
- Baldiga – Unlocked Heart by Markus Stein by Markus Stein. Germany. 2024. Using diary excerpts, photographs and memories from companions, the film paints the portrait of the artist Jürgen Baldiga who sensitively and authentically captured the West Berlin queer scene of the 1980s and early 1990s with his camera. World premiere.
- A Bit of a Stranger by Svitlana Lishchynska. Ukraine. 2024. Svitlana, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, examines the colonised part of her consciousness and tries to find answers to the question of how Soviet totalitarianism and Russification influenced the relationships within her family. World premiere.
- Diaries from Lebanon by Myriam El Hajj. Lebanon/France/Qatar/Saudi Arabia. 2024. Lebanon, 2018. War, politics or revolution: these are the choices faced by Georges, Joumana and Perla Joe. Three destinies and a shared desire to rebuild a troubled country. How is it possible to continue to dream when everything around is falling apart? World premiere.
- Ještě nejsem, kým chci být/I’m Not Everything I Want to Be by Klára Tasovská. Czechia/Slovakia/Austria. 2024. After the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková strives to break free from the constraints of the repressive Czechoslovakian regime and embarks on a long journey towards freedom. World premiere.
- No Other Land by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor. Palestine/Norway. 2024. This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli authorities and the unlikely alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval. World premiere.
- Sayyareye dozdide shodeye man/My Stolen Planet by Farahnaz Sharifi. Germany/Iran. 2024. Farah, an Iranian woman, is forced to migrate to her private planet to be free. She buys other people’s memories in the form of Super 8 films and records and archives her own to create an alternative history of Iran. World premiere.
- Teaches of Peaches by Philipp Fussenegger, Judy Landkammer. Germany. 2024. Seamlessly weaving together exclusive archival gems with dynamic tour footage, this documentary captures the transformative journey of Canadian Merrill Nisker into the internationally acclaimed cultural powerhouse that is Peaches. World premiere.
- Tongo Saa/Rising Up at Night by Nelson Makengo. Democratic Republic of the Congo/Belgium/Germany/Burkina Faso/Qatar. 2024. Tongo Saa is a sensitive portrait of the residents of Kinshasa with their faith, hopes and disappointments, immersed in the beauty of the nights in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. World premiere.
Documentaries in Berlinale Special
- At Averroès & Rosa Parks by Nicolas Philibert. France, 2024. A psychiatric clinic in Paris. Individual interviews and patient-carer meetings reveal a form of psychiatry that gives more space to the patients’ words. Little by little, the door to each of their worlds opens wider. World premiere.
- Eleven Tomorrows: Berlinale Meets Football. Germany, 2024. Eleven short documentaries about eleven youth football teams for different age groups and with varying prospects. This Berlinale project is part of the cultural programme of the 2024 European Football Championship hosted by Germany. World premiere.
- exergue – on documenta 14 by Dimitris Athiridis. Greece, 2024. The film follows artistic director Adam Szymczyk and his curatorial team over two years as they prepare documenta 14. A look behind the scenes of the institutional art world and a consideration of the role of contemporary art in a shifting global landscape. World premiere.
- Filmstunde_23 by Edgar Reitz, Jörg Adolph. Germany, 2024. In 1968, the young Edgar Reitz teaches filmmaking at a girls’ school – a ground-breaking educational experiment. Fifty-five years later, there is a class reunion. World premiere.
- The Empty Grave by Agnes Lisa Wegner, Cece Mlay. Germany/Tanzania, 2024. John Mbano and Cesilia Mollel are on a mission to bring the stolen remains of their ancestor back home to Tanzania. A story about loved ones kept in German museums, the power of institutions, generational trauma and resilience. World premiere.
- Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger by David Hinton, with Martin Scorsese. United Kingdom 2024. Martin Scorsese presents this very personal and insightful new feature-length documentary about the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. World premiere.
- Turn in the Wound by Abel Ferrara. United Kingdom/Germany/Italy/USA, 2024. Abel Ferrara explores human conflict and the search for peace and balance through the music and words of Patti Smith and the experiences of people at war in Ukraine. World premiere.
Documentaries in Berlinale Forum
- The Secret Drawer by Costanza Quatriglio. Italy/Switzerland, 2024. As Sicilian journalist Giuseppe Quatriglio turns 90, his daughter starts filming him. When he dies, she keeps on filming. Boxes become archival materials, as journeys, women and post-war Europe come to the fore. And in the end, there is a father. World premiere
- Mother and Daughter, or the Night is Never Complete by Lana Gogoberidze. Georgia/France, 2023. Greatness paired with modesty: 93 years old and a daughter, world-famous director Lana remembers her mother Nutsa, Georgia’s first female filmmaker. A cinema legacy that revolves around being human in dark times: feminist, loving, critical of violence. International premiere.
- Those Days in Terezín by Sibylle Schönemann. Germany/Czech Republic, 1997. Looking for clues about the “Chaplin of Theresienstadt”, ghetto cabaret artist Karel Švenk, Schönemann meets his acquaintances and creates an intergenerational network of memory. Laughter was a form of defence. Resistance means commemoration.
- The Cats of Gokogu Shrine by Kazuhiro Soda. Japan, 2024. An ample community of cats has set up home around the Shinto shrine in Ushimado. Some local residents take care of them, others are disturbed by their mess. Kazuhiro Soda observes their co-existence with kindness, precision and occasional involvement. World premiere.
- Henry Fonda for President by Alexander Horwath. Austria/Germany 2024. “The United States of Fonda” is the motto of this three-hour autobio-filmographical monument, put together with cinematic passion and editing verve for a president that will only ever have existed on the big screen: Henry Fonda. World premiere.
- The Undergrowth by Macu Machín. Spain, 2024. Three sisters on the Canary Islands, their everyday lives infused with a magical, meditative lyricism. Three life strategies without a breadwinner, narrated via the body, a mix of staging, observation and memory. Before the volcano, serenity arrives. World premiere.
- L’homme vertige: Tales of A City by Malaury Eloi Paisley. Apartment blocks with no future are being torn down in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. Malaury Eloi Paisley follows those lost in the city through the empty streets. Their accounts form a valuable commodity, circulating in carefully developed relationships. World premiere.
- Well Ordered Nature by Eva C. Heldmann. Germany, 2024. Free-floating yet rigorously structured, this essay film presents botanist and educationalist Catharina Helena Dörrien and her time in Orange-Nassau in the 18th century. Via regulations and floral formulas, nature philosophy and social policy converge. World premiere.
- Intercepted by Oksana Karpovych. Canada/France/Ukraine, 2024. The destruction caused by the war against Ukraine is shown in lengthy tableaux. Intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families set up a shocking parallel world. Sound and image stare each other in the face, stunned. World premiere.
- Letter From My Village by Safi Faye. Senegal, 1975. Ngor loves Coumba with shyness but also determination in this wonderful docufiction, just as Safi Faye, who died last year, loves the Senegalese village that forms its central setting: its workers, millet and peanuts. A letter from the country.
- The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder by Inadelso Cossa. Mozambique/Germany/France/Portugal/Netherlands/Norway, 2024. Inadelso Cossa visits his grandparents’ village in Mozambique, where he grew up during the civil war. Back then, his grandmother kept the war out of sight for him. Now the film shines a careful light into the darkness of the past. World premiere.
- Oasis by Tamara Uribe, Felipe Morgado. Chile, 2024. In 2019, a nationwide movement forms in Chile to create a new constitution. For three years, the film accompanies Indigenous, feminist, militant, legalistic, anarchist and conservative activists. A timely large-scale canvas of democratic protest. World premiere.
- Reas by Lola Arias. Argentina/Germany/Switzerland, 2024. Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long term inmates or those newly admitted: women re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison, in trance and balance, voguing and singing. A hybrid musical and charming piece of collective empowerment. World premiere.
- Reproduction by Katharina Pethke. Germany, 2024. The ensemble of buildings that makes up the maternity clinic and art school in Hamburg where the director taught is the starting point for this sober interrogation of how motherhood and career can be combined based on three generations of German women. World premiere.
- Republic by Jin Jiang. Singapore/ People’s Republic of China, 2023. Eryang has turned his Beijing cave into a private micro-club with fine music and a mezzanine bed for love. No space at all, but lots of time to kill, with passion and psychedelics. They drink and ponder money, Communism and the cosmos. European premiere.
Documentaries in Berlinale Shorts
- Stadtmuseum/Moi Roi by Boris Dewjatkin. Germany, 2024. An essay film that describes the city as a subjective paradise in which systems of order and chaos constantly override each other. An ode to chaos, hidden signs and the city as an eternal palimpsest. World premiere.
- Baldilocks by Marthe Peters. Belgium, 2023. Through the lens of her father’s camera, she looks back at a period of her childhood of which she can remember nothing. Twenty years after surviving cancer, she searches for traces of the illness between scars and desires. International premiere.
- Towards the Sun, Far from the Centre by Luciana Merino/Pascal Viveros. Santiago in the shimmering summer heat. High-res images undergo a digital zoom which transforms spaces into surfaces and houses into textures. In between, there are the small gestures of everyday urban life. And two women in search of a place for their love. World premiere.
- The Moon Also Rises by Yuyan Wang. France, 2024. Artificial moons are going to be launched into space to eliminate the difference between day and night. An elderly couple retreats into the increasing darkness of their apartment, illuminated by digital devices. World premiere.
- Unwanted Kinship by Pavel Mozhar. Germany, 2024. Using the streets of his Berlin neighbourhood as a backdrop, a filmmaker from Belarus investigates the systematic nature of Russian and Belarusian war crimes in Ukraine and explores his own responsibility for this war. World premiere.
- City of Poets by Sara Rajaei. Netherlands, 2024. In a small, semi-utopian city, all the streets are named after poets. When war begins, new neighbourhoods emerge to accommodate the refugees. Now, the streets are named after soldiers. World premiere.
- I Don’t Want to be Just a Memory by Sarnt Utamachote. Berlin queer community members mourn the substance abuse-related loss of their friends by sharing memories and rituals. Resembling glow-in-the-dark fungi, they radiate light together as a network of support and care. World premiere.
Documentaries in Berlinale Generation 14+
- Maydegol by Sarvnaz Alambeigi. Iran/Germany/France, 2024. An Afghan teenager living as an immigrant in Iran strives to pursue her dream of becoming a professional Muay Thai boxer while battling the social injustice and violence she encounters beyond the ring. World premiere.
- Songs of Love and Hate by Saurav Ghimire. Nepal/Belgium 2024. The sudden disappearance of the popular host of a relationship advice radio show leaves a vacuum. Listeners are uncertain about the direction their romantic endeavours should take. World premiere. (Short)
Documentaries in Berlinale Retrospective
- The Germans and their Man by Helke Sander. Federal Republic of Germany, 1989. In her search for a suitable man, “Lieschen Müller” interviews politicians and passers-by in the then German capital Bonn about their masculine self-image. Male violence is also on the tantalising list of survey questions in this satirical documentary.
- The Goat’s Intensity by Jochen Krausser. German Democratic Republic, 1988. The story of a young home moviemaker, who shoots an amateur film group as it is making a village murder mystery. This short is a surrealist satire that plays ironically and subversively with the conventions of cinema and the visual arts.
- In the Country of My Parents by Jeanine Meerapfel. Federal Republic of Germany 1981. In 1981, Jeanine Meerapfel questioned Jews living in Berlin about whether it felt like home, and about their fears. All of them were the children of exiled and persecuted parents. What they talked about is alarmingly topical, even today.
- Der kleine Godard. An das Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film. Federal Republic of Germany, 1978. This experimental documentary shot with a self-developed Super 8 system shows the basis upon which films by, say, Rainer Werner Fassbinder or Hark Bohm were made in Germany – not however by avant-garde filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
- Invisible Days, or the Legend of the White Crocodiles by Eva Hiller. The big city seen in artificial light. This essay film illuminates the nightly lifelines that keep Frankfurt and Berlin running. The director undertakes a critical reflection on the urban “Empire of Light”, uncovering the underbelly of modern life.
