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There are more and more stories being told in film about people growing old. Earlier this summer, Music Box released the lovely little film Familiar Touch, described as a "coming-of-old-age" story about a woman who moves into a nursing home. A few years ago, there was a Japanese film titled Plan 75 about the option for anyone after 75 to be terminated so they don't overburden Japanese society – but, of course, not all old people really want to go. I'm also a big fan of the Oscar nominated documentary from Chile titled The Mole Agent, which was recently adapted into the Netflix series A Man on the Inside set inside a retirement home. Another film about aging is this one from Brazil – The Blue Trail, the latest feature directed by Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro. It first premiered at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, where it won Grand Jury Prize at the end,...

The Blue Trail, the latest movie from Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro (Neon Bull, Divine Love, August Winds), takes viewers into a magical but also political Amazon in a near-future dystopia.

The film, which won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlin this year, is one of the highlights from the recent festival circuit that is screening in the Horizons program of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), starting on Friday.

“In order for Brazil to develop economically, the country gives priority to its younger generations, while older people are put away in government colonies so they will not ‘get in the way,'” reads a synopsis. The 77-year-old Tereza, however, refuses and decides to escape.

That sets the stage for a movie that puts older women in the spotlight in ways rarely seen. Denise Weinberg stars as Tereza, along with Miriam Socarras and Rodrigo Santoro.

Leading Costa Rica-based indie distributor-producer Pacifica Grey, run by Marcelo Quesada and Karina Avellán, have pounced on the distribution rights to Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail,” a big winner at Berlin and Guadalajara (Ficg).

Pic had its local premiere at the 13th Costa Rica Film Festival (June 20-29) and is set to bow across Central America on Nov. 13, according to Quesada.

“While our editorial line is focused on bringing diverse cinema from all over the world, this year we set out to bring more Ibero-American films to theaters across the region. That’s why ‘The Blue Trail’ (Brazil) joins ‘Querido Trópico’ (Panama) and [Jonas Trueba’s] ‘The Other Way Around’ (Spain) as part of our 2025 releases, currently representing 50% of our lineup,” said Quesada.

In April, Pacifica Grey released the Oscar-nominated “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” Its distribution slate also includes Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” starring Barry Keoghan (“Saltburn”). On the production side,...

Irish directorColum Eastwood’shorror film The Morrigan andMark Forbes’class divide documentaryQuiet On Setare among the films set to world premiere at the 37th edition of Galway Film Fleadh, taking place from July 8-13 in Ireland.

Quiet On Set explores class division in the UK film industry and features actors Maxine Peake and Vicky McClure, writer Paul Laverty and filmmakers Sean McAllister and Kolton Lee.

The Morrigan follows an archaeologist who unearths a burial casket of a mummified figure and unleashes an ancient evil upon her team. The cast includes Saffron Burrows, James Cosmo, Toby Stephens and Antonia Campbell-Hughes.

Galway...

The 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) will feature key Cannes Film Festival winners in its Horizons section and a selection of action and horror movies, both new and older, for its revamped Midnight Screenings program under the new name “Afterhours.”

In a lineup update unveiled on Friday, Kviff said it will this year screen more than 130 feature films in the picturesque Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.

The Horizons lineup, which traditionally features highlights from the festival circuit of the past year, includes the likes of Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, Tom Shoval’s A Letter to David, Michel Franco’s Dreams, My Father’s Shadow by Akinola Davies Jr., Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, Jafar Panahi‘s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, and fellow Cannes...

The 13th edition of the Costa Rica International Film Festival marks the first iteration with Patricia Velásquez Guzmán at the helm, but the filmmaker is a veteran when it comes to the San José-based event. Guzmán has participated at the festival since before it was a festival itself, producing the film showcase in the 2010s and returning several times both as part of the production team and as an invited filmmaker.

“I know the festival very well, so, as much as I love it dearly, I also know how it can be improved,” Guzmán tells Variety ahead of the festival’s kick-off. “One of the most important things right now is connecting with younger audiences without lowering the quality of the films we’re programming. We’re also heavily focused on the festival’s communication, catering the publicity to the themes we’re covering and how people can best experience the festival.

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...

Nativity, by Chilean filmmaker Francisca Alegría and produced by Quijote Films and Madre Content, has won the Screen International Ecam Forum Award, which highlights a project with international co-production and festival scope.

The project was selected by Screenat the Ecam Forum industry gathering in Madrid, which runs June 10-13.

Nativity, a magical realist tale about trauma, violence and redemption, is Alegría’s second feature after The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future which premiered at Sundance in 2022.

It was one of the international projects welcomed at the second edition of the Ecam Forum pitching sessions, which are designed...

This episode reflects on how Brazilian and Portuguese cinemas serve as a bridge between Latin America and Europe.Rui Poças is an acclaimed Portuguese cinematographer best known for his long-standing collaborations with two key figures of contemporary Portuguese cinema: Miguel Gomes and João Pedro Rodrigues. Since working on their respective debuts—The Face You Deserve (2004) and O Fantasma (2000)—Poças has lensed such acclaimed films as Our Beloved Month of August (2008), Tabu (2012), The Ornithologist (2016), Will-o’-the-Wisp (2022), and most recently Grand Tour (2024), which won Best Director at Cannes Film Festival.His distinctive visual style has also shaped important works by leading voices in Latin America, Europe, and the US, including Zama (2017) by Lucrecia Martel, Good Manners (2017) by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, Frankie (2019) by Ira Sachs, and The Rye Horn (2023) by Jaione Camborda.Rachel Daisy Ellis is a producer originally from England who relocated to Brazil in 2004. For over a decade, she has...

José María Cravioto’s “Wheels, Weed & Rock n’ Roll: The Legend of the Mexican Woodstock” and Victoria Franco’s “Twelve Moons” feature in the Mezcal Mexican competition at this year’s Guadalajara Film Festival.

Its other main competition, focusing on Ibero-American fiction movies and doc features, takes in two of the biggest hits this year from Spain, Portugal and Latin America: Brazilian Gabriel Mascaró’s “The Blue Trail” and Spaniard Eva Libertad’s “Deaf,” both big hits at Berlin.

As importantly, the Ibero-American Competition also highlights tales which deserve far more attention: a highly thoughtful first feature from Gerard Oms, “Away” (“Molt Lluny”), with a career-high turn by star Mario Casas; “Martina’s Search,” led by the frequently magnificent Argentinian player Mercedes Morán, and Puerto Rico’s “This Island,” part of a new Caribbean cinema which is ever more frequently scoring top fest berths.

Taken together, Guadalajara’s biggest two festival...

Now on its 14th edition, the Guadalajara Film Festival’s (Ficg) Premio Maguey sidebar celebrates LGBTQ+ cinema with the addition of series and an animated feature for the first time.

“If we’re talking about inclusion, then we have to practice it ourselves, right? So naturally, it’s also about creating space for diverse content — stories and perspectives that enrich our program in meaningful ways,” said Premio Maguey programming director Pavel Cortés.

10 core films in competition are joined by six others from the other competitive sections, as in the case of toon “Lesbian Space Princess,” which also competes in the animation sidebar.

The series debuting at Premio Maguey are “Amor de papel,” “La Engañada,” shot in Jalisco, and Gabriel Ripstein’s crime dramedy “Mentiras,” which will be honored with a Gala, said Cortés.

“Amor de papel,” directed by Edu Cortés, turns on Christian, a man immersed in his books and fantasies,...

The Guadalajara International Film Festival (Ficg) is proudly celebrating its 40th edition with a milestone: Mexico’s first-ever stop-motion animated feature, “I Am Frankelda” (“Soy Frankelda”), which opens the festival.

Running June 6-14, the country’s most prominent film festival launches a new genre section that features five pics led by Pablo Stoll’s zombie dramedy “Summer Hit” (“El tema del verano”) and Emilio Portes’ “Don’t Leave the Kids Alone.” This new by invitation only sidebar would be the 10th competitive section of the fest.

“It’s never been easy to put on a festival in Mexico – there are a lot of people who don’t really understand the work that goes into it. But what truly matters is that, for 40 years, through changing tides, shifting governments and opposition from both inside and out, we’ve kept the festival alive. And what we’ve come to realize is that...

“Our goal is to keep supporting São Paulo’s — and by extension, Brazil’s — presence on the global audiovisual stage. We want our films, stories, and professionals to be seen, recognized, and valued worldwide,” says Spcine CEO Lyara Oliveira.

One milestone move in international outreach looks set to be made at the Cannes’ Marché du Film, where Spcine and South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (Nfvf) will launch a joint call for submissions for a pilot international co-development program.

In Cannes, Spcine and Brazil’s Riofilme and Projeto Paradiso will reveal a development scheme in partnership with Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund to launch to launch Hbf+Brazil: Co-development Support.

Put together, the two initiatives take Spcine’s international outreach to a trailblazing new level.

Hbf+Brazil targets the early development of projects by second and third time filmmakers from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and the rest of Brazil.

There is momentum, and there is the current moment of Brazilian cinema. This year, Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” made history as the first-ever Brazilian film by a Brazilian director to win an Oscar, scoring Best International Feature and bringing the country its first best picture nomination as well as a best actress nomination for Fernanda Torres. The week before, Gabriel Mascaro won the prestigious Berlinale Silver Bear for “The Blue Trail,” with the country having a chance at winning another major festival award with Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” playing in main competition at Cannes, where Brazil is also the Country of Honor at the Marché du Film.

“Brazil stood out immediately with its cinematic heritage, a dynamic industry undergoing a strong resurgence, and a prominent presence in Cannes,” Marché du Film Executive Director Guillaume Esmiol tells Variety of choosing the Country of Honor. “And, of course,...

The scenes of celebration across Brazil in Carnival season when Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here won the Best International Feature Film Oscar in March were akin to the country winning the World Cup.

The excitement followed a post-pandemic record-breaking $35.6 million box office in Brazil for the drama starring Fernanda Torres as real-life figure Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens Paiva disappeared from their home in the early years of Brazil’s 1964-85 military dictatorship.

“That explosion of joy in the middle of the Carnival, which is the peak of our popular culture and the best of Brazil, the best of our collective capacity to actually say who we are, was extraordinary,” says Salles.

Related: ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ Cannes Film Festival Premiere Photos: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Angela Bassett, Hannah Waddingham & More

The victory came hot on the heels of the Berlinale Grand Jury Prize win for Brazilian filmmaker...

In a milestone move and some of the biggest news from Brazil as it celebrates recognition at Cannes as its Country of Honor, International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund is teaming with three leading Brazilian film promotion orgs – Spcine, RioFilme, Projeto Paradiso – to launch Hbf+Brazil: Co-development Support.

The new joint program targets the early development of projects by second and third time filmmakers from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and the rest of Brazil.

In the pilot year of the planned three-year initiative, Hbf+Brazil will support up to nine fiction film projects in early development, directed by a Brazilian filmmaker and with a Brazilian production company attached, giving grants of €10,000 to each title.

As the management partner, Hbf will launch the call for projects in the second half of 2025 on IFFR.com. Hbf+Brazil partners , however, will sign a co-operation agreement at the Cannes Film Festival.

Sydney Film Festival (June 4-15) has revealed the full programme for its 72nd edition, including a 12-strong competition lineup dominated by features set to premiere at Cannes.

The festival has selected 201 films from 70 countries, which includes 17 world premieres, and has added the iconic Sydney Opera House as a screening venue this year, joining the State Theatre and cinemas across the city.

The opening film has been set as Together, written and directed by Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks and starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco. The domestic drama with a supernatural twist premiered at Sundance, where it proved the commercial hit...

The 72nd Sydney Film Festival has revealed its full program, launching a massive lineup of 201 films from 70 countries, including 17 world premieres, 6 international premieres, and 137 Australian premieres across multiple venues including the iconic Sydney Opera House as a new screening location.

Festival director Nashen Moodley announced the program will feature 15 films direct from Cannes including Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident” and Kelly Reichardt’s 1970s-set art heist drama “The Mastermind.”

“The 2025 festival offers a bold and expansive view of cinema today, with films that confront the urgent realities of our world, while also revelling in the power of imagination and storytelling,” said Moodley.

Other key highlights include “The Life of Chuck” starring Tom Hiddleston, debut Australian director Amy Wang’s SXSW-winning satire “Slanted,” Sundance comedy “Twinless,” and “On Swift Horses” featuring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi.

The festival will open with the Australian premiere of “Together,” written and...

Exclusive:Paris-based sales company Lucky Number has taken on international sales for Italian director Francesco Sossai’s debut feature The Last One For The Road, whichwill world premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes next month.

The Italy-Germany co-production is about two broke, bar-hopping fiftysomethings who meet a shy and aimless architecture student. Together, the three men embark on a chaotic road trip through the Venetian plains where bad advice, hangovers and unexpected friendship shake up the young man’s future plans for life and love.

The Last One For The Road is produced by Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa for...

Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail arrives as a feverish fable set amid the winding waterways of Brazil’s Amazonas, where shifting currents carry more than just river barges. It sketches a near-future society that venerates its elderly with gilded laurels even as it corrals them into a “Colony” at the age of seventy-seven—a compulsory exile disguised as honor. Here, propaganda planes streak the sky, broadcasting cheery slogans even as wrinkled citizens await the arrival of “Wrinkle Wagons,” open-caged vans that collect the unwilling and the defiant.

Into this paradox steps Tereza, a factory worker whose life of steady labor has skirted every daydream—until she learns her forced retirement is imminent. Denied permission by her own daughter to board a commercial flight, she sets out on a river-bound odyssey, guided by smuggler Cadu and buoyed by the promise of an ultralight adventure. The encounter with a bioluminescent snail,...

Exclusive: Paris-based The Party Film Sales has acquired international sales rights for Dutch director Sven Bresser’s first feature Reedland ahead of its premiere in competition in Cannes Critics’ Week in May.

The film tells the story of reed cutter Johan who discovers the lifeless body of a girl on his land and is overcome by an ambiguous sense of guilt. While he takes care of his granddaughter, he sets out on a quest to track down evil. But darkness can thrive in unexpected places.

Non-professional actor Gerrit Knobbe makes his big screen debut as Johan, alongside young newcomer Loïs Reinders.

The drama is among 11 first and second feature films, seven in competition, selected out of 1,000 submitted films for the upcoming edition of Cannes Critics’ Week, running from May 14 to 22.

Reedland is the first feature by a Dutch director to premiere in Critics’ Week since Karim Traïdia’s The Polish...

After celebrating its three Oscar nominations for Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” with the same excitement it normally reserves for the soccer World Cup, Brazil went into overdrive when it took home the best international feature statuette.

The Sambadrome at Rio de Janeiro Carnival was hosting processions when it erupted in jubilation as the Oscar win for “I’m Still Here” was announced by the Carnival commentator. The period political drama was already part of the event as best actress nominee Fernanda Torres was named one of the Carnival’s muses.

Brazilian president Lula issued a statement that “Today is a day to feel even prouder of being Brazilian, proud of our cinema, our artists and above all proud of our democracy. A recognition to this extraordinary work which showed Brazil and the world the importance of the struggle against authoritarianism.”

Globo, Brazil’s TV giant, issued a press release celebrating the win,...

Official awards of the 75th Berlinale International Film Festival have been announced and “Dreams” directed by Dag Johan Haugerud won the Golden Bear Award.

According to the report of Mansour Jahani, an independent and international cinema journalist, The closing ceremony of the Berlinale International Film Festival was held at 18:00 on February 22, 2025, at the Berlinale Palast in the city of Berlin, Germany, and the winners of various competition, including; the Main Competition, Perspectives (Gwff Best First Feature Award), the Berlinale Documentary Award as well as the Berlinale Shorts prizes were introduced and the prestigious Golden Bear award for the best film and other awards of this film event were awarded to the winners.

The Prizes of the International Jury

The members of the 2025 International Jury, The members of the jury of the Main Competition of this prestigious and first-class world cinema event are: The US-American director, screenwriter and producer Todd Haynes,...

Todd Haynes’ jury awarded the 75th Berlin Intl. Film Festival’s top honors this past Saturday to Dag Johan Haugerud’s Dreams (Sex Love) but the Golden Bear winner wasn’t the consensus top choice from the critic establishment, instead it’s the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner in Gabriel Mascaro’s fourth feature O último azul that was the favorite. The Brazilian fantasy film produced by Rachel Daisy Ellis and Sandino Saravia Vinay pulled together the top culminated score on Screen Daily grid and was the first ★★★★ stamped competition film review from our chief film critic Nicholas Bell. Here are the winners, Nicholas’ competition film reviews and the grid.…...

Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail is the winner of this year’s Berlin jury grid with an average score of 3.4 as Kateryna Gornostai’s Timestamp, Hong Sangsoo’s What Does Nature Say To You and Lionel Baier’s The Safe House completethe entries.

The Blue Trailstars Denise Weinberg in a dystopian fable following a 77-year-old who embarks on a journey through the Amazon. It received four four-stars (excellent) and five three-stars (good) and beats last year’s joint winners My Favourite Cake and The Devil’s Bath with 3.1.In the official Berlin award ceremony, the film received theSilver Bear grand...

Dreams took the top prize Golden Bear in Berlin Photo: © Motlys

Norway’s Dag Johan Haugerud won the Golden Bear in Berlin last night for Dreams. It was the first time the top honour had been won by the country.

Although technically the “second” in a loose trilogy, which also includes Sex and Love, they have premiered internationally out of order, which in many ways seems appropriate since they can be watched in any sequence. It tells the story of teenager Johanne (Ella Øverbye) who writes about a love affair with her teacher Johanna (Selome Emnetu) which may or may not be imagined and which sparks differing reactions in her mother (Ane Dahl Torp) and grandmother (Anne Marit Jacobsen).

Dag Johan Haugerud with his Golden Bear Photo: © Richard Hübner/Berlinale 2025

The film also won the Fipresci prize and the German arthouse cinemas’ guild award. The Silver Bear went to Brazilian...

The Berlin Film Festival kicked off its 75th anniversary edition February 13 with the opening-night world premiere screening of The Light, Tom Tykwer’s politically charged film that takes stock of German society in the first quarter of the 21st century. It starts 11 days of debuts including for movies starring Jessica Chastain, Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Rupert Friend, Marion Cotillard, Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky, Emma Mackey and more.

The 2025 Berlinale runs through February 23.

Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.

Blue Moon

Section: Competition

Director: Richard Linklater

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott

Deadline’s takeaway: Richard Linklater’s Broadway chamber piece looks back to a lost time and mourns a lost soul in Lorenz Hart as the booze is about to consume him. In a bravura theatrical performance, Ethan Hawke...

The 75th Berlin International Film Festival announced the winners of the fest at the awards ceremony held at the Berlinale Palast on February 22.

19 films competed for the awards in this year’s competition with director Todd Haynes heading the International Jury alongside director Nabil Ayouch, costume designer Bina Daigeler, actor Fan Bingbing, director Rodrigo Moreno, film critic and author Amy Nicholson, and director, actor, and screenwriter Maria Schrader.

Related: Berlin Film Festival: Norwegian Film ‘Dreams (Sex Love)’ Wins Golden Bear, Andrew Scott & Rose Byrne Take Acting Honors — Full List

The Golden Bear for Best Film was awarded to Dreams (Sex Love) by Dag Johan Haugerud. Rose Byrne won The Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance for her role in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, while Andrew Scott received The Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance in Blue Moon. Huo Meng was honored with The Silver Bear for Best...

The Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival was awarded to Norway’s Dag Johan Haugerud for Dreams (Sex Love) tonight (February 22), the first time this honour has gone to the country.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Dreams (Sex Love) sees Haugerud complete his Sex Love Dreams trilogy with the story of a young woman whose writings about a crush on her French teacher shock her mother and grandmother, causing them to re-examine their own fantasies. M-Appeal is handling sales.

Haugerud said on stage that it was “beyond [his] wildest dreams” to win the Golden Bear and, speaking...

The 2025 Berlin International Film Festival announced its award winners on Saturday, with Dreams (Sex Love) from filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud winning the prestigious Golden Bear. Acting honors went to lead performer Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and supporting performer Andrew Scott for Blue Moon.

This year’s 2025 Berlinale competition jury was led by filmmaker Todd Haynes (his narrative feature debut Poison was awarded the Teddy Prize for queer filmmaking in Berlin in 1991). Other jurors included Nabil Ayouch (Morocco/France), costume designer Bina Daigeler (Germany), actor Fan Bingbing (China), director Rodrigo Moreno (Argentina), Los Angeles Times critic Amy Nicholson (U.S.), and filmmaker and actor Maria Schrader (Germany).

See the complete list of 2025 Berlin International Film Festival award winners below.

Golden Bear: Dreams (Sex Love) by Dag Johan Haugerud

Silver Bear Jury Prize: The Message by Iván Fund

Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: The Blue Trail...

The 75th Berlin Film Festival has concluded after nine days of fearless cinema in Germany. IndieWire was on the ground this year and earlier this week took a closer look at the top contenders for the Berlinale Golden Bear, which will be announced today along with other prizes.

That Rose Byrne and director Mary Bronstein had returned to the Palast red carpet meant their film “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (which bowed early on at Berlin after world premiering at Sundance in January) was bound to win something. Byrne won the Silver Bear for Best Lead Performance for her turn as a stressed-out mother in crisis in the A24 psychodrama. Hopefully, this award gives Byrne momentum for the 2025 awards season ahead; it’s one of the great screen performances and certainly the crown of her career.

Today’s ceremony marked the first under new artistic director Tricia Tuttle,...

Norwegian filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud’s latest Dreams (Sex Love) has won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list of winners.

The film is the third entry in a trilogy from Haugerud. The other films in the trology are Sex and Love, both released in 2024.

Other stand out winners included Andrew Scott and Rose Byrne, who took acting honors during the closing ceremony. Scott picked up Best Supporting Performance for his role in Richard Linklater’s competition title Blue Moon while Byrne won Best Leading Performance for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

Chinese filmmaker Huo Meng won Best Director for Living The Land and Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude won Best Screenplay for Kontinental ’25.

This year’s festival was Tricia Tuttle’s first at the helm. Events began on February 13 with a screening of Tom Tykwer’s latest The Light.

The 75th anniversary edition of the Berlin Film Festival — and the first under the leadership of its new chief, Tricia Tuttle — drew to a close Saturday night, as the jury awarded the Golden Bear to Dag Johan Haugerud’s “Dreams (Sex Love).”

There’s a special poetry in giving this film — the portrait of a teenage girl with a passionate imagination who pours her intense feelings toward a teacher into a transformative personal essay — the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival. The film represents the third installment in the Norwegian writer-director’s “Dream Sex Love” trilogy. The first, “Sex,” premiered a year earlier in the Panorama section of the 2024 Berlin Film Fest, while “Love” debuted in competition at Venice late last summer.

“The film is called ‘Drømmer’ — it’s Norwegian for ‘dreams’ — and this was beyond my wildest dreams really,” said Haugerud, in accepting the prize from jury president Todd Haynes.

Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud has won the 2025 Berlinale Golden Bear for Dreams, a queer love story that completes his verbally explicit, but visually chaste Sex, Love, Dreams trilogy.

The deceptively ambitious drama follows a teenage girl’s infatuation with her female teacher, told mostly in retrospect, as the teen recounts her memories through a novel she has written about the events. In his review, The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic David Rooney called the film “tender, captivating and often very funny,” noting the fact that Haugerud has made “three thematically related but narratively distinct features in a year is remarkable enough; that they are all terrific, even more so.”

The Berlin jury, headed by Carol director Todd Haynes, picked Dreams from the 19 titles in competition at the 75th Berlinale.

Rose Byrne and Andrew Scott won top acting honors at this year’s Berlinale film festival, with Byrne winning...

The Blue Trail, the lively new film from Gabriel Mascaro, takes its name from the secretions of a mythical snail. Azure and oozing, the substance, when dropped on the iris, is rumored to grant a vision of things to come. This news is welcomed with admirable disinterest by Tereza (Denise Weinberg), a woman of a certain age who has, due to recent state insistences, decided there’s no longer much use in looking ahead. The film is set in a near-future Brazil where the lives of the elderly are overseen by some cruel combination of governmental interventions and half-interested offspring. In Tereza’s world, leaving one’s locale now requires a permission slip, and those without are rounded up in so-called “Wrinkle Wagons.” Anyone lucky enough to reach their 80th birthday, as Tereza soon will, are rewarded with a move to The Colonies: a place no one seems to know much about,...

“Our country is going toward the future,” booms a disembodied voice of authority as The Blue Trail begins. In this cinematic vision of Brazil imagined by screenwriter Tibério Azul and vividly realized by director Gabriel Mascaro, it’s no country for old women. An empowering narrative of one woman who refuses to see age as a ceiling, the film serves as a potent warning for viewers about the marginalization of the elderly.

The Blue Trail is a slightly off-kilter refraction of the world as it exists. Perhaps as a result, it’s all the harder to shake. In the Brazil of Mascaro’s film, the government designates its older citizens as “living heritage” and begins legal protocols to sideline them within society. Their patronization under the guise of protection includes forcing retirement, transferring custodianship to younger relatives, and the eventual scuttling off to an old age colony.

This setup amounts...

Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25 makes a strong debut on the Berlin critics jury grid while Johanna Moder’s Mother’s Baby, Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Yunan and Dag Johan Haugerud’s Dreams (Sex Love) also land.

Kontinental ’25scored a 3.1 average rating from the critics, putting it second behind Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail on 3.4. Jude’s Romanian-set drama received three four-stars (excellent) four three-stars (good) and two two-stars (average) – the latter from Barabara Hollender and Kalapapruek.

Click on the grid above for the most up-to-date version

Jude was last in Berlin with his Golden Bear-winning Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn...

Frédéric Hambalek’s dark comedy What Marielle Knows, about a teenager with the power to read her parents’ minds, has inked multiple territory deals following its Berlinale premiere in competition.

The film has sold across Europe to Paname Distribution in France, Cineart in Benelux, Karma Films in Spain, Alambique in Portugal, Edge Entertainment in Scandinavia, Aurora in Poland, Film Europe for Czech Republic and Slovakia, Mozinet in Hungary, Beta in Bulgaria, Scanorama in the Baltics, and McF Megacom in Former Yugoslavia. Palace Films will distribute the film in Australia and New Zealand, Bir Film in Turkey, Falcon in Indonesia, Cine Canibal...

This year’s Berlin Film Festival, under new artistic director Tricia Tuttle, moves closer toward popular tastes than arguably under the stead of Carlo Chatrian. He departed the festival last year while leaving behind a legacy of programming a more arthouse-minded slate. Italian cineaste Chatrian came from Locarno as well as more niche festivals throughout Europe; Tuttle is an American with a history of film journalism and programming in the States and at the BFI London.

Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” and the Berlin premiere of “A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures) brought stars like Robert Pattinson and Timothée Chalamet (along with his girlfriend Kylie Jenner) to the festival for viral moments that have put an energizing, social-media-friendly spotlight on the European showcase here in the U.S. “Mickey 17” needs all the help it can get, as the sci-fi comedy has been re-dated several times and, in the David Zaslav...

Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon and Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You are among the latest titles dividing critics on this year’s Berlin jury grid.

Ethan Hawke stars as songwriter Lorenz Hart in his latest collaboration with Linklater which scored an average of 2.8 stars after proving divisive. Blue Moon received three four stars (excellent) while Martin Horyna and Kalapapruek gave it just one star (poor). The rest of the scores comprised two or three stars with one critic left to score.

Linklater’s last outing at Berlin was over 10 years ago with Boyhood which topped...

It's not often that a Dystopian setting is used as the backdrop for a warm-hearted quasi-adventure story of self-fulfillment but ever since his debut Neon Bull, Gabriel Mascaro has shown a knack for combining unusual ideas and moods. He also took us into the near-future with his previous film Divine Love, which satirised religious views of marriage and child rearing. Now it’s old age he’s got his sights on and, secondarily, the environment - suggesting that while things may not always look as pristine as they once did, where there’s life, there’s hope.

There’s no indication of exactly what year we’re in this time but it surely isn’t very far from now. “The future is for everyone,” declares the banner that flies from the back of a plane making daily forays over the house where 77-year-old Tereza (Denise Weinberg) lives. The government has...

One of the many peculiarities of recent U.S. cultural trends is the “over-55 community,” gated havens for well-off retirees who embrace the idea of mono-generational living as an all-comforts interlude before Thanatos comes knocking. In Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail, a gentle blend of delayed self-realization fantasy and dystopian portent, the cutoff age is 77, which in a way is progress (think of Logan’s Run) and the move is involuntary, but resistance is not futile. Mascaro’s fourth feature can be considered a pair with his previous Divine Love, which also imagined a near-future controlled by a repressive state disguised as a caring Big Brother, but his latest is less deliciously elliptical than earlier films, privileging sensorial rewards that come from the natural world rather than the human body.

Set aglow by the earthy force of Denise Weinberg as Tereza, a woman determined not to be put away, The Blue Trail...

Movies about dystopian near futures are a dime a dozen, but it’s hard to recall one that sweeps you up in the defiant joy of liberation like The Blue Trail (O Último Azul). Gabriel Mascaro’s imaginative fable is a slap in the face of age discrimination, with hallucinogenic gastropods, dueling tropical fish and “wrinkle wagons” — trucks with caged flatbeds in which non-compliant oldsters are hauled off while kids snap cellphone photos. The subversive spirit gradually awakened in the 77-year-old central character is echoed in the cheeky pleasures of the plotting in a film both fantastical and grounded in earthy reality.

Mascaro had his international breakthrough in 2015 with the intoxicating Neon Bull, a ripely sensual contemplation of the thin line separating man and beast, which upended conventional notions of machismo through its observation of a makeshift family of animal handlers working the rodeo circuit in Northern Brazil. The cowboy...

Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail has taken the lead on Screen’s Berlin jury grid with a strong 3.4 while Ari, Dreams, The Ice Tower and Reflection In A Dead Diamond also land.

The Blue Trailreceived four four stars (excellent) and five three stars (good), already beating the score of last year’s joint winners My Favourite Cake and The Devil’s Bath with 3.1.Denise Weinberg stars in the dystopian fable as a 77-year-old who embarks on a journey through the Amazon.

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Close behind was Michel Franco’s...

Pitched somewhere between science-fiction and fable, director Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail” finds a beacon of optimism within its own dystopian view of the future. Set in the director’s native Brazil — and showcasing the astonishing natural beauty (side by side with decay) of the Amazon in every high-definition frame — the film centers a 77-year-old woman, Tereza (Denise Weinberg), in a society that has deemed anyone above the age of 75 an impediment to its economic success. Mascaro sees her differently, and so will we by the end of what unexpectedly turns out to be the greatest South American houseboat movie since “Fitzcarraldo.”

The “Neon Bull” director has always had an incredible visual sense, though his plots tend to lack focus. Not this one. Judging by its concept alone, “The Blue Trail” could technically be classified alongside “Children of Men” on video store shelves. And yet, in both genre and tone,...

Crimes of the Future: Mascaro Envisions Trouble Ahead

“Getting old ain’t no place for sissies,” a quote often attributed to Bette Davis (or similar variations of the sentiment) easily applies to The Blue Trail, Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro’s fourth feature which depicts a near-future world where the elderly are conscripted against their will to an isolated concentration camp so the country’s youth can more easily focus on working. While darkly comedic in tone, it’s also a life changing odyssey for its central protagonist, a spry seventy-seven-year-old woman who is unwilling to obey these newly imposed orders. Pleasurably mordant in its critique of governmental propaganda disguising violence and inhumanity, Mascaro showcases lead Daniela Weinberg as a witty, resourceful woman who is far from ready to walk gentle into that good night.…...

Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail,” playing in competition in Berlin, marks another great milestone for Brazilian cinema in a year where the country got its first best picture Oscar nomination with Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.” Mascaro follows in the footsteps of Salles playing in competition in Venice and Karim Aïnouz playing in competition at Cannes with “Motel Destino,” three consecutive Brazilian films playing in the most prestigious strands of the three most important European film festivals.

“Each one of these films is so different from each other but has great strengths,” Mascaro tells Variety ahead of his Berlinale bow. “I feel very proud to be a part of it.”

“The Blue Trail” takes place in a near future Brazil where the government relocates the elderly to senior housing colonies so the younger generations can fully focus on productivity and growth. Tereza (Denise Weinberg), nearing 80, refuses to accept her fate,...

Thierry Machado’s Pipaluk, The Girl Who Raced The Wind about a young girl who enters Greenland’s biggest dog sledding race, David Roux’s marriage drama Mrs, and Alain Ughetto’s 3d-animated Rose And The Marmots headline the debut EFM slate of new French sales outfit Lucky Number.

Pipaluk, The Girl Who Raced The Wind, is a Greenlandic-Kalaallisut-language film produced by France’s Agat Films – Ex Nihilo and Galatée Films with Denmark’s Snowglobe and Greenland’s Ánorâk Film. Shooting will kick off in Greenland later this year. Lucky Number is positioning it as a commercial film aimed at families and children.

New Paris-based sales company Lucky Number has acquired world rights to Frédéric Hambalek’s family satire What Marielle Knows,which will premiere in competition at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.

The film’s titular protagonist is a young girl who develops telepathic abilities that give her the power to see and hear everything her parents do, which shakes up the ostensibly perfect couple’s relationship. As secrets are exposed, a manipulative game leads to unexpected consequences.

Julia Jentsch and Felix Kramer star alongside newcomer Laeni Geiseler.It is German filmmaker Hambalek’s follow-up to debut feature Model Olimpia which premiered...

“The Blue Trail,” Gabriel Mascaro’s dystopian Brazilian movie which is slated to compete at the Berlin Film Festival, has landed on the inaugural slate of newly-launched Paris-based sales banner Lucky Number.

The selection marks Brazil’s return to the Berlinale Competition following “All the Dead Ones” by Caetano Godardo in 2020. Mascaro previously attended the Berlin Film Festival with “Divine Love” which opened at Sundance and went on to play in the Panorama section in Berlin in 2019. Lucky Number has unveiled a first still of the film and will kick off sales at the EFM in Berlin next month.

The politically minded film unfolds on the banks of the Amazon, and is set in a near future, in a society in which the elderly are invited to exile themselves once their expiration date has passed. The story revolves around Tereza, 77, who has lived her whole life in a small, industrialized town in the Amazon,...