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German director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s Hysteria has been awarded the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film in the Panorama section at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

The behind-the-scene conspiracy thriller follows the drama on a German film shoot, a production about real-life arson attacks on a Turkish family by German skinheads, that kicks off when a copy of the Quran is burnt on set. That kicks off a cleverly plotted whodunit that also examines the issue of who benefits from fictionalizing real-world violence. “Imagine Knives Out meets François Truffaut’s Day for Night, but set in a present-day Germany rife with tensions about immigration and Islam,” The Hollywood Reporter critic Jordan Mintzer said in a rave review.

The Europa Cinemas jury—comprising Klaudia Elsässer (Art+ Cinema, Hungary), David Kelly (Light House Cinema, Ireland), Constanze Oedl (Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus, Austria), and Cenk Sezgin (Cinemarine Cinemas, Turkey)—praised Büyükatalay...

Hysteria, directed by German filmmaker Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay, has been named Best European Film in the Panorama section at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film received the Europa Cinemas Label, granting it additional promotional support and incentives for theaters to feature it in their programming.

The jury described Hysteria as a tightly constructed conspiracy thriller with unexpected developments leading to a tense final sequence. They noted its ability to spark discussion on pressing social issues while keeping audiences engaged.

The jury panel consisted of Klaudia Elsässer, David Kelly, Constanze Oedl, and Cenk Sezgin.

Thriller with Political Undertones

Written and directed by Büyükatalay, Hysteria follows a story that explores paranoia and manipulation in contemporary society. The film is a production of Filmfaust, with Pluto Films handling international sales.

The cast features Devrim Lingnau, Mehdi Meskar, Serkan Kaya, Nicolette Krebitz, and Aziz Çapkurt. The film’s cinematography is by Christian Kochmann,...

German director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s Hysteria has won the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European film in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival.

The film, which has received rave reviews, unfolds against the backdrop of a film shoot which is thrown into disarray when a burned Quran is found on film set.

A young intern is caught in the crossfire and drawn into a dangerous game of secrets, accusations and lies.

Hysteria will now benefit from promotional support from Europa Cinemas and better exhibition thanks to a financial incentive for network cinemas to include it in their programme schedule.

The jury comprised Klaudia Elsässer (Art+ Cinema, Budapest, Hungary), David Kelly (Light House Cinema, Dublin, Ireland), Constanze Oedl (Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria) and Cenk Sezgin (Cinemarine Cinemas, Bodrum, Turkey).

Hysteria is a filmfaust production, with international sales handled by Pluto Films.

The cast includes Devrim Lingnau, Mehdi Meskar,...

Imagine Knives Out meets François Truffaut’s Day for Night, but set in a present-day Germany rife with tensions about immigration and Islam. That’s the pitch behind Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s behind-the-scenes thriller, Hysteria, which kicks off when a copy of the Koran is accidentally — or not — burnt on a film set. Footage of the scene then goes missing, making us wonder who could have stolen it.

The incident happens during the production of a drama about the 1993 arson attack in Soligen, in which five members of a Turkish family were killed when a gang of German skinheads set fire to their home. Büyükatalay uses the recreation of that event as the catalyst for a cleverly plotted whodunit that questions the nature of fictionalizing real-world violence, asking us who ultimately profits off such issue-driven movies.

As with any good mystery, we have to keep guessing which person the culprit...

In “Hysteria” (2025), director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay uses the real-life racist burning down of an immigrant flat in Solingen to unleash a gamut of inquiries into divides between the white prototype and the Other. What are the anxieties, and the unease running in between? The director funnels them through a film being mounted on the incident, and the incident is re-staged in a scene.

“Hysteria” opens with the arson scene. A slick shift of perspective, from the footage to behind-the-scenes devising, sets things rolling. Elif (Devrim Lingnau), a fresh university graduate roped in as a second Ad on the film, drives the viewer’s entry into the drama. What triggers the central plot is the paranoia stemming from a copy of the Quran getting burnt in the arson re-enactment. Said (Mehdi Maskar), an extra on the set, gets irate when he spots the torched copy in the footage. He...

A director and his assistant stare through a monitor at the pitch dark charred facade of a house, erected inside a sound stage. The house is a replica of the one in Solingen, Germany where a notorious act of arson in 1993 committed by a group of young far-right extremists left five Turkish migrant women and girls of the Genç family dead.

One of the more eerie early images in Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s (“Oray”) provocative and suspenseful sophomore feature “Hysteria,” is only superficially a reveal of the overrated genre that is the film within the film. Part of what makes the image eerie — other than the haunting opacity of its black and charcoal palette, reminiscent of a falsely abandoned Moria — is the gut unease it evokes about the motivations behind the cinematic re-enactment. For starters, who is telling whose story, and why? The meta implications “Hysteria” will need to address...

Filmmaking, both on a large and small scale, is a stressful business for various reasons, conceptual and artistic as well as practical ones. Basically, the source of stress is decision-making and the fact that it almost necessarily involves a group of people who all have their own lives, beliefs and identities. Misunderstandings and conflicts occur almost every day of shooting and, in that case, romanticising the “authority” of the filmmaker in charge is not very helpful.

Premiering at Berlinale, in the Panorama section, Mehmet Akif Buyukatalay’s Hysteria is envisioned as a tense, paranoid thriller set within the film crew working on a project that deals with the racism in contemporary Germany, referring to the 1993 Solingen arson attack. It is a project of a somewhat established Turkish-German auteur Yigit (Serkan Kaya) and his producer Lilith (Nicolette Krebitz), but of the kind that favours authenticity over spectacle. This is one of the.

Netflix’s hit Spanish comedy series “Machos Alfa,” “Alpha Males” in English, got the green light for a fourth season in Spain and a fourth international adaptation in Germany, joining other in-production adaptations of the show in France, the Netherlands and Italy.

“Machos Alfa” is the story of four middle-aged friends experiencing midlife crises in parallel as they attempt to adapt to modern sensibilities regarding masculinity. It was created and is written by Alberto and Laura Caballero, Spanish sitcom royalty who both worked on the iconic series “Aquí no hay quien viva” and “La que se avecina.”

The series launched in December 2022 and quickly became one of Spain’s most popular comedy series, where it ranked in Netflix’s top 10 for 13 weeks. Season 2 launched in February of this year, and Season 3 recently wrapped production, although no release date has been announced yet.

Germany’s version of “Machos Alfa,” which is currently untitled,...

Pluto Film has expanded its lineup ahead of this year’s EFM in Berlin with Generation 14plus screener “Huling Palabas.”

The Berlin-based sales company has also acquired the historical drama “Sima’s Song” by award-winning Afghan director Roya Sadat; Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s timely and suspenseful German social drama “Hysteria”; and Luxembourgish helmer Eric Lamhène’s “Breathing Underwater,” which explores violence against women.

Ryan Espinosa Machado’s Philippine coming-of-age drama “Huling Palabas,” described by Pluto Film CEO Daniela Cölle as “a charming LGBTQ debut,” follows a 16-year-old boy in 2001 who, while searching for his father in the most unlikely of places, becomes mystified by two movie-like characters who appear in his small town.

“Huling Palabas” is produced by the Philippines’ Tilt Studios, Terminal Six, Waf Studios and Studio Pulo.

“Sima’s Song”

“Sima’s Song” stars Mozhdah Jamalzadah and Niloufar Koukhani as Suraya and Sima, lifelong friends whose lives take...