Desire Lines

Impressive independent filmmaking, documentary works poised between the poetic and the urgent, strong newcomers and established masters – the 2026 Berlinale Panorama offers a glimpse into the immense range of cinematic art.

The programme is rich in contrast and shines not only with its visual variety. The films also captivate with their emotional depth, densely woven textures and exceptional sense of composition. They possess the power to shape our perception of the world – even beyond the cinema.

A key focus this year is the question of space in all its aspects. This includes cinematic space as a place of contemplation and also our living spaces. Which spaces are assigned to us? Which ones do we conquer, which ones defend?

Yulia Lokshina’s Im Umkreis des Paradieses (Around Paradise) and Tobias Nölle & Loran Bonnardot’s Tristan Forever explore utopias in self-imposed exile: Paraguay and the island of Tristan da Cunha are the settings for these profoundly different realities, balanced between longed-for isolation and total control. Patric Chiha’s Un hiver russe (A Russian Winter), on the other hand, illuminates the circumstances of young Russians fleeing their dystopian homeland.

In their films, Tawfik Sabouni (The Other Side of the Sun) and Alisa Kovalenko & Marysia Nikitiuk (Traces) create spaces for reflection where the protagonists can talk about their traumas and the globally present architecture of war, violence and abuse. In Takuya Uchiyama’s heartbreaking Japanese feature film Shibire, a boy’s childhood wounds lead him to fight against speechlessness and social isolation – masterfully staged against the backdrop of the icy landscape of northern Japan.

Lali is one of several powerful Asian films in the programme. With Geunyeoga doraon nal (The Day She Returns), frequent Berlinale guest and doyen of cinema Hong Sangsoo delivers a subtle and multifaceted portrait of a female actor. Agnis Shen Zhongmin explores her origins and family history in her elegant, hybrid Shanghai Daughter, set in the metropolis of Shanghai and the southwestern province of Yunnan. In a somewhat more chaotic but no less fascinating film, we follow director and artist Viv Li as she shifts between her new queer hipster bubble in Berlin and her home in Beijing with self-deprecation and inquisitive curiosity in Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest.