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Mexico’s most prominent film festival, the Guadalajara International Film Festival (Ficg) lived up to its renown, scoring massive attendance for its milestone 40th edition, which wrapped June 14.

Led by festival director Estrella Araiza, the annual film event in Mexico’s second largest city reported 29,599 screening admissions, 7,209 participants in masterclasses and panels, and 1,473 accredited guests and industry professionals. Its inauguration fiesta alone, which featured live music and Lucha Libre, is said to have lured up to 3,500 attendees.

With the new genre cinema sidebar this year, won by Germán Tejada’s “The Innocents,” the festival marked 10 competitive sections. The Iberoamerican section was dominated by Brazil, with Best Fiction Film going to Gabriel Mascaro’s Berlin Special Jury prizewinner “The Blue Trail” and Anna Muylaert’s “The Best Mother in the World,” winning Best Screenplay, Cinematography and Performance for lead Shirley Cruz. The latter, sold worldwide by The Match Factory, won at...

The title isn’t intended ironically in “The Best Mother in the World” — at least not to the extent it is in, say, “The Worst Person in the World.” But there’s a truism embedded in its hyperbole: Most people on good terms with their mother would describe her as the world’s greatest, regardless of any flaws and errors along the way. The two young children of Gal (Shirley Cruz), the endlessly put-upon protagonist of Brazilian writer-director Anna Muylaert’s new film, believe as much, their devotion only strengthened as the script puts them collectively through the wringer. Conscientiously addressing a national crisis of domestic abuse while also lunging for the heartstrings, the film is an uneven balance of grainy social realism and crowd-pleasing uplift, but Cruz’s resolute performance just about holds it together.

Muylaert remains best known for her 2015 feature “The Second Mother,” a Sundance prizewinner that...

The first time Anna Muylaert had a film play at the Berlin Film Festival, it changed her life, and not entirely for the best. “The Second Mother,” which won the Panorama Audience Award and went on to become Brazil’s representative at the Academy Awards as well as the most popular film in the country that year, changed Muylaert’s career and catapulted her to international attention.

“The Best Mother in the World” was inspired by what came next: an unexpected wave of abuse that saw the director look at the ways women navigate the world.

Speaking with Variety ahead of the world premiere of her latest, Muylaert says that after the success of “The Second Mother,” she gained respect from the press and the public but began to “suffer a lot of violence from those closest” to her. The director compares what happened to her to Sandra Hüller’s...

Ahead of the Berlinale 2025 taking place February 13-23, they’ve unveiled their lineups for Berlinale Special, Panorama, Generation and Forum sections. Highlights include confirmation of Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 alongside Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Ancestral Visions of the Future from This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, a documentary on the making of Shoah, a new Jacob Elordi-led series from Justin Kurzel, and more.

See the lineup below via Deadline and check back for the competition lineup next week.

Berlinale Special

Ancestral Visions of the Future

by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese | with Siphiwe Nzima, Sobo Bernard, Zaman Mathejane, Mochesane Edwin Kotsoane, Rehauhetsoe Ernest Kotsoane

France / Lesotho / Germany / Saudi Arabia 2025

Berlinale Special | World premiere | Documentary form

A poetic allegory of the filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s childhood, an ode to cinema and an inner nod to his mother. Through fragmented narratives and mythic imagery,...

The Berlin Film Festival (February 13-23)has unveiled a raft of additions to its programme, including the full Special, Panorama, Generation and Forum line-ups.

Scroll down for full list of titles

Eight works have been added to the Berlinale Special line-up, including confirmation the festival will host the German premiere ofParasitedirector Bong Joon Ho’sMickey 17.The filmstars Robert Pattinson in the story of an “expendable” on a mission to colonise an ice planet who keeps dying and coming back to life. It is likely to world premiere in South Korean ahead of playing at the Berlinale.

The world premiere of...

The Berlin Film Festival has confirmed that Bong Joon Ho‘s highly anticipated Mickey 17, the director’s first feature since his historic Oscar sweep with Parasite, will have its international premiere out of competition in Berlin. The film will bow first in South Korea on Jan. 28, and will roll out in the U.S. on March 7. Warner Bros. is releasing the film worldwide.

The Robert Pattinson-starrer will get a Berlinale Special gala screening at the 2025 Berlinale. The sci-fi film features an ensemble cast including Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo alongside Pattinson.

Dylan Southern’s family drama The Thing With Feathers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, also secured a Berlinale Special slot. The adaptation of Max Porter’s novel follows a father grappling with his wife’s sudden death while raising their young children.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the upcoming series from Australian director Justin Kurzel (The Order,...

Aussie filmmaker Justin Kurzel’s series adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, starring Jacob Elordi, will screen at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North was among several titles added to Berlin’s lineup this morning.

The festival describes the series as a “riveting new Australian drama” about a WWII hero haunted by his past. The show will screen as a Berlinale Special Gala. Also in Specials strand is The Thing with Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The pic screens at Berlin following a debut bow at Sundance and is from filmmaker Dylan Southern. The pic is an adaption of Max Porter’s novel about a grieving father wrestling with the sudden death of his wife while also raising their young children. As previously reported, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 will also screen. Scroll down...