Eight additional works join the lineup for Berlinale Special, one of the most diverse sections of the festival, which includes Red Carpet Galas, late-night genre thrills and talking point films.
The Berlinale Special programme will include a total of 21 films. The first announcements included four films (see Dec. 5 and Dec. 17, 2024). The remaining titles will be announced on January 21.
From the award-winning writer/director of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, comes his next dazzling cinematic experience, Mickey 17. Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson alongside an all-star cast, including Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Anamaria Vartolomei, with Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. The Thing with Feathers from director Dylan Southern stars Benedict Cumberbatch in 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. Both of these films will be presented as Berlinale Special Galas.
As the first of the 2025 series announcements, Berlinale Special Series Gala welcomes Justin Kurzel’s adaption of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Jacob Elordi stars in this riveting new Australian drama series about a WWII hero haunted by his past.
The smashing South Korean vengeance-thriller Pa-gwa (The Old Woman with the Knife) from director Min Kyu-dong will premiere as a late-night Berlinale Special. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese joins the Berlinale Special line-up with Ancestral Visions of the Future, a Lesotho-set poetic documentary meditation on cinema and exile.
Brazilian director, Anna Muylaert returns to the Berlinale with A melhor mãe do mundo (The Best Mother in the World), a beautifully intimate film about a hard-working mother fighting for the safety of her young children that stars Shirley Cruz and Seu Jorge.
Berlinale Special will also feature two remarkable works to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 2025: Shoah and Je n'avais que le néant - "Shoah" par Lanzmann (All I Had Was Nothingness). Claude Lanzmann's monumental Shoa, which premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 1986, will be shown in its entirety at the Akademie der Künste. This ground-breaking film returns to the big screen in the centenary of Lanzmann’s birth and on the 40th anniversary of the film’s release. Lanzmann’s deliberate avoidance of historical archival footage and the extraordinary length of the work at 9 hours and 26 minutes, allows for a profound reflection on the Holocaust. A new work makes a powerful companion to Shoah, Je n'avais que le néant - "Shoah" par Lanzmann (All I Had Was Nothingness) from director Guillaume Ribot. Working from 220 hours of previously unpublished footage shot by Lanzmann, Ribot creates a deeper insight into this unparalleled masterpiece, with Dominique Lanzmann serving as co-producer on this new work.
Berlinale Press Office
January 16, 2025