Berlin hosts the 2025 Berlinale, a 75th edition that marks endurance more than a parade of anniversaries. The emphasis is squarely on cinema again, not celebrations. Tricia Tuttle, an American programmer, steps into the festival director role with a clear mandate: restore media visibility and recapture international talent that slipped away during Carlo Chatrian’s tenure. The aim is to reestablish the Berlinale as a hub for North American acquisitions and for Canadian and American audiences to engage with films that might otherwise pass unseen on the continent. The goal is to strengthen North American connections while keeping the festival open to bold voices from all over the globe.
Yet the year opens amid the shadow of a crisis that left a mark on the festival in 2024. At the closing ceremony, several remarks supported a Palestinian cause and criticized the Gaza conflict. German institutions, including the city that finances a portion of the festival and the culture ministry, accused those statements of antisemitism. Tuttle argued that the remarks were an act of free expression; over subsequent months she tempered that stance, mindful that the festival now operates under new leadership that relies on its financiers. The dynamic is a reminder that the festival’s politics are intertwined with its programming, even as its leadership pivots toward cinematic dialogue.
In recent weeks Tuttle has signaled a preference for speaking less about politics and more about film, a stance that raises questions because Berlinale identity has long been tied to public discourse. If the aim is to foster genuine cinematic dialogue, the opening film has become a focal point for debate. The feature, Das Licht, directed by German filmmaker Tom Tykwer, offers a contemporary reimagining of Pasolini’s Teorema. Tykwer, who rose to prominence after Run Lola Run, uses the stormy encounter in the film to explore a bourgeois family drawn into contact with a mysterious visitor who seems to wield magical influence. The work invites audiences to consider how power, privilege, and desire intersect in modern life, echoing concerns that resonate across borders and cultures.
Like Pasolini, Tykwer uses the premise to probe moral questions, but his focus is on the narcissism and hypocrisy of the progressive middle class as it grapples with the refugee crisis, climate change, the legacy of colonialism, and the burden passed to future generations. Tykwer has recalled that years spent shaping the series Babylon Berlin highlighted a certain symmetry between the world of his grandparents and present times. He says the film was meant to ask what people today do with these truths. Critics, however, have argued that the film engages similar traps it seeks to critique, slipping into spectacle and offering engagements with real problems that feel shallow. The two-hour-plus runtime features musical numbers, magical realism, elements of virtual reality, florid dialogue, and moments of cinematic flash that invite skepticism. Some viewers also see the central Syrian character as a trope, framing a minority within a white-centric storytelling approach. Tuttle defends the project as a call for empathy, but critics question whether the director has placed the audience in a shared frame of reference.
Whether the Berlinale can remain a site of political resonance is a running test this year. A new section of the program invites deeper reflection on a society navigating division and upheaval, with the festival presenting its goals alongside the craft of cinema rather than apart from it. In the opening consolidation of the lineup, Tuttle argued that the festival should stand for resilience and dialogue rather than retreat from political debate. Critics counter that any moment of confrontation inevitably colors the cinema on display, and the choice to open with a film centered on moral questions intensifies that tension.
This morning, in a press briefing, Tuttle described the Berlinale as a space of resistance, though not in the sense of resisting the art itself. She said the festival must shield itself from the rise of the far right and from hate speech, especially as Germany approaches federal elections that could shift the political terrain. It is a moment when political topics cannot be ignored, and those themes dominated the briefing announcing the jurors who will award the main prizes in the 75th edition.
Voices from the jury podium have reflected the mood. Todd Haynes, serving as jury president, spoke of a climate where political moves abroad spark concern and where the public will seek responses that mirror those concerns back into cinema. An Argentine colleague weighed in with a pointed critique of political leadership at home, arguing that those in power threaten civil liberties and artistic freedom. The room listened, and the discussion moved beyond the red carpet to broader questions about what cinema can and should say when politics becomes a daily pressure. The conversation echoing through the festival is a reminder that art and politics continue to shape one another as the Berlinale enters its 75th year.
In the end the festival faces a test of whether it can guide conversation without surrendering its affection for film. For audiences in Canada and the United States, the 2025 edition offers a chance to see cinema engaged with present concerns while also presenting bold storytelling. The festival remains a space where ambitious work, lively debates, and a willingness to cross borders converge, inviting North American viewers to participate in a conversation that goes beyond any single nation’s politics.