2025 | Meet the Sections | Perspectives
Fluent in the Languages of Cinema

The 2025 Perspectives films

Adham Shoukry, Zeyad Islam
Al mosta’mera | The Settlement by Mohamed Rashad
EGY, FRA, DEU, QAT, SAU 2025, Perspectives
© Hassala Films

Tillotama Shome
Baksho Bondi | Shadowbox by Tanushree Das, Saumyananda Sahi
IND, FRA, USA, ESP 2025, Perspectives
© Saumyananda Sahi / Moonweave Films

Funmilayo Akechukwu
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions by Kahlil Joseph
USA 2025, Perspectives
© Participant

Benjamin Vasquez Barcellano Jr., Tess Magallanes, Jenny Llanto Caringal
Come la notte | Where the Night Stands Still by Liryc Dela Cruz
ITA, PHL 2025, Perspectives
© Walang Hanggan

Laura Uribe Rojas, Bernardo Gamboa, Micaela Gramajo, Regina Alejandra, Rafael Nieto Matrínez, Donovan Said, Mariapau Bravo Aviña
El Diablo Fuma (y guarda las cabezas de los cerillos quemados en la misma caja) | The Devil Smokes (And Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box) by Ernesto Martínez Bucio
MEX 2025, Perspectives
© Odei Zabaleta

Fresco Mafalda, June João, Eloísa d’Ascensão, Helena Estrela, Cristiana Cruz Forte, Marcelo Tavares, Paula Tomás Marques, Pedro Miguel Gonçalves
Duas vezes João Liberada | Two Times João Liberada by Paula Tomás Marques
PRT 2025, Perspectives
© Fresco Mafalda | Cristiana Cruz Forte, Paula Tomás Marques

Devin Pan, Misi Ke
Hé mán | Eel by Chu Chung-Teng
TWN 2025, Perspectives
© Static Film & Visual Art Productions

Luisa-Céline Gaffron
How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World by Florian Pochlatko
AUT 2025, Perspectives
© Golden Girls Film

Jara Sofija Ostan, Mina Švajger
Kaj ti je deklica | Little Trouble Girls by Urška Djukić
SVN, HRV, ITA, SRB 2025, Perspectives
© SPOK Films

Destiny Checo, Juan Collado
Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) by Joel Alfonso Vargas
USA 2025, Perspectives

Zsófi Szamosi, Szabolcs Hajdu, Ágoston Sáfrány, Eliza Sodró
Minden Rendben | Growing Down by Bálint Dániel Sós
HUN 2025, Perspectives

Anton Franke
Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen | Punching the World by Constanze Klaue
DEU 2025, Perspectives
© Flare Film / Chromosom Film

Ulysse Goffin, Myriem Akheddiou, Alisa Laub, Adèle Pinckaers
On vous croit | We believe you by Charlotte Devillers, Arnaud Dufeys
BEL 2025, Perspectives
© Makintosh Films

Blandine Madec
Le rendez-vous de l’été | That Summer in Paris by Valentine Cadic
FRA 2025, Perspectives
© 2024 Comme des Cinemas - Cinq de Trefle Productions
Perspectives, the Berlinale’s new first fiction feature competition brings together exceptional international filmmakers, spanning the globe from Austria to Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Slovenia, Taiwan and the United States. While the stylistic and thematic diversity is just as wide-ranging, all of these filmmakers reach out to audiences with brave hearts, boundless curiosity and bold ideas.
Valentine Cadic’s Le rendez-vous de l'été (That Summer in Paris) invites the audience to join her lead character on an introspective journey through Paris at the height of the spectacle and chaos of the Summer Olympics.
Chu Chun-Teng’s Hé mán (Eel) is infused with magic realism and history of place that imagines a new way to see the past within the present. Themes of transformation and image-making unfold around identity and gender in Paula Tomás Marques’ film within a film, Duas vezes João Liberada. History, transformation, image-making and new archives of identity spread out across past, present and future in Kahlil Joseph’s BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions.
Coming of age is instigated by unexpected turns of events for the young women of Kaj ti je deklica (Little Trouble Girls), the young brothers of Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen (Punching the World), and Joel Alfonso Vargas’ teenaged Rico in Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo).
The pressures of work and family collide in Mohamed Rashad’s Al mosta’mera (The Settlement) and Liryc Dela Cruz’s Come la notte (Where the Night Stands Still); two films that are very different stylistically, but equally ambitious.
The trauma and impact of war and mental illness on families is explored with deft tenderness in Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi’s Baksho Bondi (Shadowbox), Ernesto Martinez Bucio’s El Diablo Fuma (The Devil Smokes) and Florian Pochlatko’s How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World.
Similarly, a delicate balance of agony, urgency and compassion fuels the families in Arnaud Dufeys and Charlotte Devillers’ On vous croit (We Believe You) and Bálint Dániel Sós’ Minden Rendben (Growing Down) in these two very precise debuts.
Through their films, these first-time fiction filmmakers make evident that they are fluent in the languages of cinema, have bold ideas and offer new ways of seeing the world. That this is the future of cinema, bodes very well indeed.
This international competitive strand that puts a spotlight on new fiction filmmakers, in partnership with GWFF (Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten), will award 50,000 euros to one film selected by the Perspectives jury for the section’s top prize, courtesy of GWFF.