Berlinale 26

In the first four episodes of his planned 16-episode series, Mark Cousins provides a stimulating overview of the history of documentary film up to the 1960s. It’s precisely the director’s personal touch, his willingness to choose, combined with an effort to include more diverse voices outside of the traditional documentary canon, which make this series, at least so far, particularly enjoyable.

A gently joyous and reflective journey through the life and work of pioneering experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, Brydie O’Connor’s illuminating and impressively structured film utilises 16mm, 8mm, video and digital from the Barbara Hammer estate to celebrate the work of a forthright filmmaker and to dwell on her considerable legacy.

Fil Ieropoulos’s hybrid feature Uchronia invokes the wild and restless spirit of Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, as it offers up a latter-day critique of identity, revolution and the role of the artistic avant-garde. It is a film of glorious excess, characterised by a wanton curiosity and a vagabond unrest of style. “Major film festivals are increasingly risk averse these days, much more than they were in the 80s and 90s, the director says. “That said, we are very happy to be at Forum Expanded, the most daring section of the whole of the Berlinale.”

Esther Bannenberg oversees her second edition as chief of DocSalon, which kicks off February 13, running through to Feb 17. “What excites me most is bringing in the networking dynamics at DocSalon and the Archive Market,” she tells BDE, “to make sure that we facilitate business opportunities as well as strengthen the ties between creatives and industry execs [and] an open informal exchange on all levels, while serving the documentary eco systems to explore which innovations can help to overcome challenges and create new opportunities.” Bannenberg is joined in conversation by Tanja Meissner, Head of Berlinale Pro.

Indian filmmaker Madhusree Dutta could not understand why her mother, who died of Alzheimer’s in 2015, would talk so much about tigers, even though she had never mentioned seeing one before her illness. But after hearing the story of the eponymous US Flying Tiger planes that were operational in the Himalayas during WW2, things began to fall into place for Dutta, at which point she was inspired to embark on a genre-defying study of memory, war and infrastructure. Dutta discusses her new film with BDE.

Patric Chiha’s inspiration for his new documentary, selected for Berlin Panorama, came in September 2022 when he first saw images of young Russians crossing the border in Georgia, fleeing the Putin regime. “They were facing a situation I could not imagine. Their faces seemed to say a lot about their fragility, and the violence of our world,” the director reflects to Business Doc Europe.

The film, directed by Kristina Mikhailova, will have its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Forum Special section. River Dreams marks a historic milestone as the first documentary from Kazakhstan ever selected for Berlin. “My film is a love-hate letter to Kazakhstan, told through a female gaze, already an act of resistance where I come from,” says director Mikhailova. (See exclusive first look at the film’s official poster.)

French sales company Andana Films has boarded Tawfik Sabouni’s The Other Side of the Sun (see trailer) which receives its world premiere in Berlin Panorama 2026, in which the director returns to post-Assad Syria to meet four fellow former detainees of the notorious former Saidnaya prison. “The film reveals the horror of a system and its executioners, while also bringing out a profound human beauty born from the protagonists’ listening and solidarity,” says Stephan Riguet, Andana Films MD.

Directed by Anna Fitch and Banker White, the US documentary details how, after losing her friend Yo, director Anna builds a detailed one-third scale version of her friend’s house. It is just big enough for Anna to squeeze into, and inside lives a puppet of Yo. When the pair first met, Yo was 73 and Anna was 24. The 76th Berlinale runs February 12 to 26, 2026.

Organisers of the 76th Berlinale announced January 14 the complete list of doc titles in its Panorama and Generation sections, and titles so far selected for Berlinale Special. Eleven docs are selected for Panorama, and four in the various Generation sub-sections, while six doc features and series are so far slated for Special. The upcoming Berlinale will run February 12 to 22.