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Berlinale 2024: Our Critical Diary

Berflinale 2024

The Berlinale takes place from February 15 to 26, 2024.

We bring you a critical diary.

In addition to our social networks twitter and facebook (and our youtube channel on which we relay our interviews as well as press conference footage), we’re offering you critical diaries so you can follow our impressions of the films at this new edition live.

The rating scale applied is as follows:

–         very bad film
*         acceptable film
**       good film
***     very goof gilm film
****   excellent film
***** masterpiece

Who do i belong to by Meryam Joobeur

A film by Meryam Joobeur
With: Mariem Jlassi Akkari, Neji Kanaweti, Chakib Romdhani, Hélène Catzaras, Adam Bessa, Noomen Hamda, Bahri Rahali, Imene Ghazouani
Salha, the matriarch of a farming family in the remote north of Tunisia, is overjoyed when her son Malek returns home from Syria with a mysterious young wife…
Our review

The Empire by Bruno Dumont

A film by Bruno Dumont
With: Anamaria Vartolomei, Camille Cottin, Lyna Khoudri, Bernard Pruvost, Fabrice Luchini, Philippe Jore, Julien Manier, Brandon Vlieghe
A small village of Northern France is the battleground of undercover extraterrestrial knights. Our rate: *
Our review

The Devil’s Bath by Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala

A film by Veronika Franz ,Severin Fiala
With: Anja Plaschg, Maria Hofstätter, David Scheid, Tim Valerian Alberti
18th century Austria. Villages surrounded by deep forests. A woman is sentenced to death after killing a baby. Agnes is marrying her loved one and candidly prepares herself for a spouse life. Soon after,…
Our review

Suspended time by Olivier Assayas

A film by Olivier Assayas
With: Vincent Macaigne, Nora Hamzawi, Micha Lescot, Nine d’Urso, Maud Wyler
April 2020––Lockdown. Etienne, a film director, and his brother Paul, a music journalist, are confined together in their childhood home with their new partners Morgane and Carole. Every room, every object, reminds them of their…
Our review

Sons by Gustav Möller

A film by Gustav Möller
With: Sidse Babett Knudsen, Dar Salim, Jacob Ulrik Lohmann, Olaf Johannessen, Marina Bouras, Sebastian Bull Sarning, Siir Tilif, Ida Cæcilie Rasmussen, Rami Zayat
Idealistic prison guard Eva has her sense of justice challenged when her son’s murderer is placed in her prison. A horrifying psychological drama…
Our review

Small Things Like These by Tim Mielants

A film by Tim Mielants
With: Cillian Murphy, Ciarán Hinds, Emily Watson, Clare Dunne, Michelle Fairley
Over Christmas 1985, devoted father Bill Furlong discovers the startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, as well as some shocking truths about his own life.
Our review

Shambhala by Min Bahadur Bham

A film by Min Bahadur Bham

In a Himalayan polyandrous village, pregnant Pema faces scrutiny as her first husband vanishes. With her de facto husband, a monk, she embarks on a journey to find him, evolving her quest into self-discovery and liberation.
Our review

Pepe by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias

A film by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias
With: Jhon Narváez, Sor María Ríos, Fareed Matjila, Harmony Ahalwa, Jorge Puntillón García, Shifafure Faustinus, Steven Alexander, Nicolás Marín Caly
A voice that claims to be from a hippopotamus. A voice that doesn’t understand the perception of time. Pepe, the first…
Our review

La Cocina by Alonso Ruizpalacios

A film by Alonso Ruizpalacios
With: Raúl Briones, Rooney Mara, Anna Díaz, Motell Gyn Foster, Laura Gómez, Oded Fehr, James Waterston, Lee Sellars, Eduardo Olmos, Bernardo Velasco
Following “the life in the kitchen of a vast New York City restaurant where all the cultures of the world mix during the lunchtime…
Our review

Gloria! by Margherita Vicario

A film by Margherita Vicario
With: Galatéa Bellugi, Carlotta Gamba, Veronica Lucchesi, Maria Vittoria Dallasta, Sara Mafodda, Paolo Rossi, Elio, Natalino Balasso, Anita Kravos, Vincenzo Crea
It is late 18th century in Venice, and in a convent school for girls Teresa, a girl with prophetic gifts, joins forces with some amazing…
Our review

From Hilde, With Love by Andreas Dresen

A film by Andreas Dresen
With: Liv Lisa Fries, Johannes Hegemann, Alexander Scheer, Gabriela Maria Schmeide, Emma Bading, Sina Martens, Lisa Hrdina, Lena Urzendowsky, Hans-Christian Hegewald, Heike Hanold-Lynch
A couple who fall in love and spend a joyful summer until they are captured by the Gestapo.
Our review

Dying by Matthias Glasner

A film by Matthias Glasner
With: Corinna Harfouch, Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek, Hans-Uwe Bauer, Saskia Rosendahl, Anna Bederke, Tom Böttcher, Kailas Mahadevan
Revolves around the Lunies family whose estranged members include mother Lissy, son Tom and daughter Ellen. They reconnect after each of them faces death in…
Our review

Dahomey by Mati Diop

A film by Mati Diop

About the return of the royal treasures of Abomey in Benin, snatched away by colonial plunder, to a country that has had to build itself up and come to terms with their absence. Our rate: **
Our review

Black Tea by Abderrahmane Sissako

A film by Abderrahmane Sissako
With: Nina Mélo, Han Chang, Wu Ke-Xi, Michael Chang, Pei-Jen Yu, Wei Huang, Isabelle Kabano
Aya, a young Ivorian woman in her early thirties, says no on her wedding day, to everyone’s astonishment. After emigrating to Asia, she works in a tea export shop with Cai,…
Our review

Architecton by Viktor Kossakovsky

A film by Viktor Kossakovsky

An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone. Victor Kossakovsky raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?
Our review

Another End by Piero Messina

A film by Piero Messina
With: Gael García Bernal, Renate Reinsve, Bérénice Bejo, Tim Daish, Amina Ben Ismaïl, Philip Rosch, Dami Olukoya, Kathleen Hagen
Set in a near-future when a new technology exists that can put the consciousness of a dead person back into a living body, in an attempt to…
Our review

A Traveler’s Needs by Hong Sang-soo

A film by Hong Sang-soo
With: Isabelle Huppert, Lee Hye-young, Kwon Hae-hyo, Cho Yun-hee, Ha Seong-guk, Kim Seung-yun, Kang So-yi, Ha Jin-hwa
A French woman, who initially played a child’s recorder in a park and faced financial struggles, eventually became a French teacher for two women, finding solace in lying down…
Our review

A different man by Aaron Schimberg

A film by Aaron Schimberg
With: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson, Miles G. Jackson, Patrick Wang, Neal Davidson, Jed Rapfogel, Marc Geller, James Foster, Jr., JJ McGlone
Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare,…
Our review
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