Berlinale 26

Finlay Pretsell’s documentary on the great Scottish artist, sold by Autlook and produced by Sonja Henrici and Pretsell himself, is as close as you can come to watching a major talent in full flow. “I was fascinated by what makes a great artist tick, I suppose,” the director tells BDE. “He’s almost in some sort of trance, making this work. This would take hours. We would often spend 12 to 15 hours [a day] in the studio.”

Traces, selected for Berlin’s Panorama section, addresses head-on the collective trauma suffered by survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), as perpetrated by the Russian military on Ukrainian women and men since 2014. More so, the film is about the refusal to remain silent, and centres on Iryna Dovhan, head of SEMA Ukraine, who documents the testimonies of survivors. “You see these women, you see their faces. They're not covered. They're not blurred. They're ready to talk. They're ready to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of truth,” co-director Kovalenko tells BDE.

At Berlin’s EFM, one of this year’s conversations about documentary form and legacy focused on Barbara Forever, Brydie O’Connor’s debut feature portrait of pioneering US experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer. After bowing at Sundance last month, the film is celebrating its international premiere in the Forum Special sidebar of the Berlinale. BDE reports.

A gently complex, yet resolutely compassionate film, and one that is neither fully documentary nor fully fiction, Maite Alberdi’s A Child of My Own (Un hijo propio) shines the spotlight both on the maternal impulse, as well as the social and familial pressures and expectations that come to dominate a Mexican woman’s life.

Tristan da Cunha may be the most remote inhabited island on the planet, but it is nevertheless the place where Loran Bonnardot, a piano-playing doctor from Paris, is determined to settle. His existentialist journey, part-fictionalised, is chronicled by Swiss director Tobias Nölle. “I saw in Loran a castaway from our hyper-competitive society, seeking an authenticity we’ve lost, on an island secluded from our war-torn world; a dream I wanted to transform into a cinematic experience,” he says.

After its highly successful launch in 2025, NLWave, the showcase for upcoming feature films, documentaries and animation from the Netherlands, returns to Utrecht for its second edition on 1 and 2 October 2026. At last year’s inaugural edition, eight feature doc projects either at early stage or as works-in-progress, were presented. Additionally, three recently completed feature docs were screened.

In her new feature doc, a deep longing for motherhood, intensified by relentless pressure from those around her, compels a woman (Alejandra) to stage a false pregnancy, which leads to her eventual exposure and incarceration. “I always think reality is stranger than fiction,” Alberdi tells BDE. “I thought the events were extraordinary but, at the same time, quickly I connected with the questions about the depression of motherhood.”

The first documentary ever to open Berlinale’s Generation Kplus section, Brazilian Eliza Capai’s delightful feature engages the talents of a group of young girls to examine the business of…well, being young girls. As well as some other big topics, such as death and religion and their future lives. “I felt it was really powerful, because when we laugh about these topics in this crazy world, we are able to think about these topics,” Capai tells BDE of her experience with the girls. “We were able to create empathy.”

Business Doc Europe interviews Isa Willinger, one of seven German film talents selected for German Films’ Face to Face showcase of February 16. In her recent feature doc No Mercy (2025), sold by Cinephil, Willinger interviewed a series of other female filmmakers who inspire her today. “Film is really a more popular medium,” says the former academic. “For me, it was always important to communicate with an audience - and not just a super tiny niche audience.”

Stuck in Berlin after the pandemic, artist and filmmaker Viv Li, who comes from solid, traditional stock back in Beijing, decided to embrace the German capital’s ‘alternative’ culture scene. Her resulting (mis)adventures are as hilarious as they are poignant, especially when seen in counterpoint to her sober, albeit loving, family life back home. “I realised that there is less and less of ‘binary’ in how we live. There are a lot of differences, but in the end, we're the same,” she suggests to Business Doc Europe.