Berlinale has announced first documentary titles for its Panorama, Generation and Retrospective sections.
PANORAMA 2026
“Powerful independent filmmaking, documentary works balancing poetry and urgency, and bold young German-language cinema,” programmers describe first selections for 2026. “There is much to discover and experience in this year’s selection: Filmmakers lead us astray with formal rigour and subversive storytelling. Which spaces are open to us? Which ones do we conquer and defend? These are central questions posed by the programme so far.”
- Bucks Harbor by Pete Muller. USA 2026 | World premiere | Debut film | Boys in Downeast Maine are shaped by the brutal winters, their harvesting of the ocean’s bounty and the rigid codes of their fathers. Bucks Harbor explores growing up in a community where a man’s worth is often defined by the strength of his back.
- Jaripeo by Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig. Mexico / USA / France 2026 | International premiere | Debut film | A journey to the hypermasculine rodeos of Michoacán state in Mexico delves into the subconscious of memory, queer desire and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
- Trop c’est trop (Enough is Enough) by Elisé Sawasawa. France / Democratic Republic of the Congo 2026 | World premiere | Debut film | Thirty years of war, seven million displaced, ten million dead. Trop c’est trop is a plunge into the chaos of the city of Goma, capital of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest by Viv Li. Germany / Netherlands 2026 | World premiere | Debut film | A Chinese wannabe artist drifts between Berlin’s overwhelming queer scene and her traditional family in Beijing. With wit and insight, the film follows her search for identity and belonging in a globalised but polarised world.
- Un hiver russe (A Russian Winter) by Patric Chiha. France 2026 | World premiere | After the invasion of Ukraine, many people in Russia faced a brutal choice: prison, the army – or exile. Margarita, Yuri and their friends are caught in the crosscurrents of history, with no way to return home, but also no place where they feel truly welcome.
BERLINALE GENERATION 2026
Berlinale Generation has confirmed the first titles in the Generation Kplus and Generation 14plus competitions. “Generation creates a centre space at the festival for young voices: on screen and beyond the cinema,” write programmers. “Curiosity, anger and hope, grief and tender solidarity — from Brazil to Taiwan, the programme immerses itself in the lived realities of young protagonists. The spectrum ranges from collaborative documentary works to captivating realms of fantasy, inviting audiences to claim their place in the world.
- A Fabulosa Máquina do Tempo (The Fabulous Time Machine) by Eliza Capai | with Manuellinha, Manu, Sophia. Brazil 2026 Generation Kplus | World premiere | In the arid Brazilian hinterland, girls play poised between their mothers’ difficult pasts and fantastic dreams for the future. In a place where men are still seen as giants compared to women, the girls cross the threshold from childhood into adolescence.
- Memories of a Window by Mehraneh Salimian, Amin Pakparvar, USA 2026 | Generation 14plus | World premiere | Short film. Following crackdowns on protests in Iran, civilians begin documenting the unrest from behind windows. When a woman is shot while recording, a film student writes her a letter raising the question: Can revolution emerge from behind windows?
- Riding Time by Roopa Gogineni, Farhaan Mumtaz. United Kingdom / France 2025. Generation Kplus | International premiere | Short film. Horse-obsessed Jaleal comes of age on the West Yorkshire moors while carrying forward the ancient cavalry sport of “neza bazi.” Filmed over three summers, this joyful portrait blows the dust off traditional tales of Empire, migration and belonging.
BERLINALE RETROSPECTIVE 2026
The Berlinale Retrospective 2026 focuses on the 1990s,” an era of upheaval, rebellion, and cinematic experimentation,” writes the festival. “The fall of the Berlin Wall, political chaos, MTV, and the digital revolution birthed a host of unconventional and inquisitive films.” The line-up includes 22 film programmes (including six documentaries), plus discussions and events. And for the first time, the Retrospective will be working with the Goethe-Institut. Beginning in March 2026, five of the films from the Berlin segment of the programme will be made available for screening in the 150 institutes around the world. The eight documentaries are as follows:
- Berlin, Bahnhof Friedrichstraße 1990 by Konstanze Binder, Lilly Grote, Ulrike Herdin, Julia Kunert | with Ula Stöckl, Jon Rose, Jörg Foth. Germany 1991. A changing of track. Observations and interviews with border guards and commuters at Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station in 1990, as the border between East and West Germany was becoming ever more porous and this crossing was already being dismantled.
- D’Est (From the East | Von Osten) by Chantal Akerman. Belgium / France / Portugal 1993. A documentary following a journey from West to East, from summery Germany to wintry, snowy Moscow. In this road movie of still lifes, which eschews voiceover narration, the camera explores the landscapes and the faces of the people who live in them.
- Glocken aus der Tiefe. Glaube und Aberglaube in Rußland (Bells from the Deep. Faith and Superstition in Russia) by Werner Herzog. Germany / USA 1993. A visual study of believers and religious charlatans in Siberia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A fascinated Werner Herzog encounters real spirituality and genuine ecstatics, but also dubious faith healers and shamans.
- Im Glanze dieses Glückes (In the Splendour of Happiness) by Johann Feindt, Jeanine Meerapfel, Helga Reidemeister, Dieter Schumann, Tamara Trampe. Germany 1990. Citizens of East Germany talk about their experiences and feelings in the face of upcoming elections that will lead to reunification with the West. The past is tinged with regret, frustration and anger, while the future is uncertain.
- Oranzhevye zhilety (Orange Vests | Orange Westen) by Yury Khashevatsky. Belarus / Germany 1993. A radical cinematic letter about the hardships facing women in the collapsing Soviet Union. Shot in Belarus, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Siberia, these interviews and observations document the exploitation and repression of an unwavering patriarchal doctrine.
- Tito pro drugi put među Srbima (Tito Among the Serbs for the Second Time) by Zelimir Zilnik | with Dragoljub Ljubičić, Milan Pavlović. Yugoslavia (until 1992) 1994 | Short film. An actor dresses up as the former Yugoslavian ruler, Tito. Walking around Belgrade, he talks to passers-by, evoking a variety of reactions. This “happening” triggers heated discussions, documented on film.
- Videogramme einer Revolution by Harun Farocki, Andrei Ujica. Germany 1992. A minute-by-minute chronology of the Romanian revolution in December 1989 in Bucharest. This cinematic montage of live footage from the state television company TVR and video taken by numerous amateurs becomes a new media-based form of historiography.
- Wildwood, NJ by Ruth Leitman, Carol Weaks Cassidy. USA 1994. Shot with an all-female crew on Super 8, Wildwood, NJ catapults the audience into the lives and stories of young American women in the 1990s. Yet under the blazing sun of the Jersey Shore, it also sometimes reveals the underbelly of the boardwalk carnival.
