2025 | Meet the Sections | Berlinale Shorts

To Be in This World

The 2025 Berlinale Shorts films

“The short film is an arrow straight to the heart,” says one of the filmmakers whose work features in the current edition of Berlinale Shorts. “For me, it’s a bit like a haiku, and I love these stripped-down forms that can hold the world within them,” another responds when asked what she values most about the format. “The short form feels like a capsule that does not have to be anything else than what it is.” Berlinale Shorts is the festival’s official short film competition. It celebrates the short form and awards one of the two Golden Bears of the Berlinale. This year, the twenty selected films shine in a multiplicity of colours, explore boundaries and set new milestones in the vast field of cinematic possibilities.

The 2025 edition is rich in portraits of varying kinds. In both the fictional and documentary forms as well as in the animations, we encounter people to whom we feel very close in a matter of minutes and who will remain in our memories for a long time to come. The films establish their own individual form and content, yet common threads run through each of the programmes. Berlinale Shorts 1 examines, among other aspects, forms of control – be it in the family or by the state – and the consequences arising from them. Berlinale Shorts 2 tells tales of friendship, longing and loss, and depicts the search to find one’s own place in the world. Berlinale Shorts 3 begins with a tender abstraction of everyday gestures, drifts into the somnambulistic and ends with anger and despair – but also with a dose of humour. Mothers play a key role in Berlinale Shorts 4, as well as the question of how patriarchal structures, racism and wars affect individual lives. In Berlinale Shorts 5, bodies are dismantled in both surreal and metaphorical ways, perspectives are switched, emancipation is achieved and love blossoms.

At the screenings, each film is followed by a short interview with the director and, if present, the cast and crew. At the “Shorts Take Their Time” screenings in silent green, the audience is invited to take part in these discussions.

An exchange of ideas will also take place at the panel discussion Making (Hi)stories Visible, hosted by the Embassy of Canada. Three filmmakers from Berlinale Shorts and Forum Expanded will present their short films and provide insights into their working practices. Together, they will reflect on how they (re)write history and the cultural canon using the means of film.

Die 2025 International Short Film Jury: Jing Haase, Dascha Dauenhauer, Phạm Ngọc Lân

Audiences will have the opportunity to learn more about the members of the International Short Film Jury at Berlinale Talents where short film expert Jing Haase, director Phạm Ngọc Lân and film composer Dascha Dauenhauer will talk about themselves and their work in a playful interview format: Not Short on Answers: The International Jury of Berlinale Shorts.

And to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Berlinale, six short film gems from the festival archive are waiting to be (re)discovered in the You and I Are Not Alone programme. Including a film starring Patti Smith and work by Justine Triet, Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel, PARKing CHANce aka Park Chan-wook & Park Chan-kyong, these works feature magical creatures and nocturnal encounters, commemorate the deceased and let the screen vibrate.

“The short form knows how to hold secrets” – further declarations of love for short films and interviews with the directors can be found on the Berlinale Shorts blog as soon as each film has celebrated its premiere.

We are very much looking forward to sharing these wonderful films with you, dear audience!

The 2025 Berlinale Shorts programme