Cinelli is a perfectionist ladybird. When her red wing sheaths are stolen, she falls into a deep depression. But then she learns that her true worth goes far beyond her looks.

As her freedom is threatened, Isio, a Nigerian migrant freshly placed in a UK asylum removal centre, searches for the will to battle the system and finds a kindred spirit who might help her through. Freedom is elusive, but love is eternal.

Believing his lover will support him, a young Mexican ballet dancer crosses the border to pursue his dreams in San Francisco. But as ambition and love clash with harsh realities, he must face the true nature of their relationship.

Three Black queer femmes in their mid-thirties take a road trip across the American Midwest in search of their friend who has seemingly disappeared off the grid.

Johanne’s intimate writings about her crush on her teacher ignite both tension and self-reflection within her family, as her mother and grandmother confront their own unfulfilled dreams and desires.

João stars in a biopic about the gender-nonconforming Liberada, who was persecuted by the Inquisition. When the film’s director is struck down by a mysterious paralysis, João navigates the chaos, determined to honour Liberada’s story and finish the film.

A broke dropout blackmails a sociology professor after discovering that his dissertation was a plagiary. This action-packed film version of a “sociological thriller” set in Berlin was Wolfgang Petersen’s lead-in to a Hollywood career.

A rehabilitation centre far from the city. Natasa is struggling to trust her much older therapist. She finds some solace in horse therapy. But a chasm is opening up between healing and harm.

Taking her dad’s job at the Olin Corporation as a starting point, Lee Anne Schmitt interweaves meditative reflections on her biography and her own body with a history of the rise and widespread influence of conservative think tanks in the United States.

A polyphonic narrator – filmmaker, parent, forest, insects, fungi, childcare worker – declares their absolute refusal of labor exploitation, and their necessity to join collective bodies in resistance.

As the child of survivors of the Sinti persecution by the Nazis, Melanie Spitta holds the “thread of the truth” in this film. “Reparations” - a lie! “The courts believed the perpetrators, not us.” Shock, evidence, warning, accusation.

Tania decides to take her horse Fantas to the city and introduce it to some friends in the working-class neighbourhood where she and her family live. Two worlds that have never crossed paths before collide in this little urban tale.

While a German couple is on their honeymoon in the USA, the groom is kidnapped by an ambulance crew. His bride joins forces with a trucker to try and find him. This 1979 thriller about the illicit trade in human organs triggered fierce debate at the time.

A bank robber comes to Munich to ask for his ex-wife’s help in “laundering” the stolen money. He is soon running from a detective and a gaggle of other greedy pursuers. A black-and-white thriller in CinemaScope inspired by American B-movies.

Tilda Swinton plays the extra-terrestrial android “Friendship” who discusses life’s big questions with a British war correspondent in a hotel in Amman during the civil war in Jordan in 1970. The Berlinale is presenting a 4K restoration of this 1987 film.

A breath of air, a movement, a touch and, in between, a dissolution. Gestures of everyday life in variation, sensual, floating in pastel colours.

Two young women in the world – a reunion weekend in Melbourne. Em’s on a break, Jessie’s always been chill. Dialogue like a babbling brook, sweet, smart, banal to heavy and back again, honest and unafraid of pathos. A generation of happy wounded souls.

Celebrating Hammer’s spontaneous shooting style and dense editing montage with Carducci’s studied cinematography, the two filmmakers, generations apart in age, shoot the last days of the amusement park Astroland in Coney Island, New York.

A young poet drops his girlfriend off at her parents’ house and is amazed by its size. He bumps into her father, meets her mother and sister, and they all end up spending a long day together; fuelled by conversation, food and libations.

Nana Xu travels to the place built by her father as a prisoner during the Cultural Revolution: first a work camp, later a prison, fruit farm and treatment centre. Conversations with last remaining witnesses, where home is still shaped by a repressed past.

For the competitive Perspectives section, a three-person jury presents the Best First Feature Award – funded by GWFF.

Flickering and pulsating, spitting and swallowing at the same time. The screen becomes a vibrating membrane; colours, shapes, beats and sounds a psychedelic whirlpool. A short, fast-paced audiovisual ode to the hypnotic power of colour and vertigo.

Award-winning sound designer and filmmaker Rana Eid weighs in on her career, her quest to capture the soundscapes of war, the role of silence, and how her projects have helped her hone her craft in times of conflict.

At a barbecue, Ryan’s five-year-old son briefly goes missing. Ryan’s violent reaction to this scare sets off a chain of events and unearths secrets from the past. A journey of self-discovery and forgiveness begins.

Floria, a nurse, works with unwavering dedication in an understaffed hospital ward. But today, her shift turns into a nerve-racking race against time.