Jan 14, 2026
Berlinale Generation 2026 – Against the Times
Opening Films and Complete Competition Line-up

George Jaques’ heart-opening, genre-savvy comedy Sunny Dancer will open the Generation 14plus competition in 2026. Rising star Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) leads a stellar cast including Daniel Quinn-Toye, Ruby Stokes, Earl Cave, Conrad Khan, Jasmine Elcock, and Neil Patrick Harris. Ramsey plays a young woman who, after surviving cancer, reluctantly spends her summer at a camp for teens with similar experiences – only to discover the profound difference between surviving and truly living.

The Generation Kplus competition will be opened by Eliza Capai’s A Fabulosa Máquina do Tempo (The Fabulous Time Machine), which centers on the girls of an economically disadvantaged Brazilian village. Between a difficult past and their own dreams for the future, this vibrant documentary explores the realities of its protagonists, who actively participate in shaping the film’s imaginative vision. A beacon for cinema’s power to understand the present and make a better world imaginable.

This year’s Generation selection features 18 feature films and 23 shorts, including 30 world premieres and ten feature debuts from 31 countries. Across the programme, cinema becomes a time machine — uncovering the past within the present, spanning life stages, and rebelling against the status quo. In Yusuke Hirota’s anime Entotsumachi no Poupelle – Yakusoku no Tokeidai (Chimney Town: Frozen in Time), time itself bends and reshapes.

Stories unfold from multiple perspectives, such as Mees Peijnenburg’s sibling drama A Family, or dive into intimate worlds like Allan Deberton’s Feito Pipa (Gugu’s World), about flamboyant eleven-year-old Gugu, whose imagination fuels his confidence — unlike his strict father (Lazáro Ramos).The search for a shoe over the course of a day and night becomes an epic coming-of-age journey in Paul Negosecu’s Atlasul universului (Atlas of the Universe).

The programme features directors long associated with Generation, such as Rima Das, who once again creates her own unique cinema of childhood in her latest film Not A Hero. Alongside these are impressive debuts like Fernanda Tovar’s fearlessly tender Chicas Tristes (Sad Girlz) and Saša Vajda’s drifting, multi-layered The lights, they fall.

Other debut films turn genre cinema into a dazzling projection surface for personal truths and political metaphors: Sandulela Asanda’s Black Burns Fast transforms the boarding school comedy into an energetic, witty drama of queer Black self-discovery, while Victoria Linares’ idiosyncratic horror reinterpretation No Salgas (Don’t Come Out) haunts the life of a young lesbian woman in more than one way. Diego Funtes shapes Matapanki into a wild punk manifesto from using the framework of a superhero film.

Lexie Bean and Logan Rozos understand cinema as a community resource in their documentary What Will I Become?, which addresses the legacy of young trans men, confronting the topic of suicide without hesitation and fiercely defending life.

Short Film Competitions

The short film competitions also ignite a dazzling display of cinematic creativity. These films tackle urgent contemporary issues through documentary approaches, and tell sensitive, complex, and timeless stories about difficult transitions between childhood, youth, and adulthood, about breakouts and gentle rebellions. They dive into fantastical visual worlds and find in cinema a language for things words cannot express. This year also marks the return of the programme for the youngest moviegoers, which, through four short works, opens the gates of imagination even for those experiencing cinema for the first time.

Generation Badge – 14plus

Film fans aged 14 to 25 who have acquired the Generation Badge – 14plus can look forward to an expanded festival experience in 2026: selected films from all Berlinale sections, events at Berlinale Talents, and a curated supporting programme developed in collaboration with MPower, NewMotion, kino.for you | DOXS RUHR, DREH’S UM, PREVYYOU, YOUKI, ZebraStreifen, and Freie Generation Reporter*innen.

With the festival pass, the section opens spaces for participation — for young audiences and the Berlinale alike — through exchange, encounters, and eleven days of inspiring cinema experiences.

The films of Berlinale Generation 2026 (film list is also available as PDF)

Press Office
January 14, 2026