Advertisement
Advertisement
TOPIC

Berlin International Film Festival

Berlin International Film Festival
Reporting on the most famous and fashionable, and the films, at the annual Berlin International Film Festival.
Hong Kong pop icon Leslie Cheung on the set of director Wong Kar-wai’s Days of Being Wild in 1990. Cheung was a trailblazing Cantopop icon who reshaped Hong Kong’s entertainment scene. Photo: SCMP
Hong Kong celebrities and icons

Profile | How Leslie Cheung broke all the rules to become a Hong Kong superstar

The music and cinema legend’s artistry, vulnerability and defiance in a conservative Asian society forever reshaped Hong Kong pop culture.

videocam
Asian cinema

10 of the best movies from the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival

videocam
Asian cinema: Chinese films

How Anthony Chen’s We Are All Strangers captures the beauty of Singapore

Asian cinema: Japanese films

Review | A New Dawn: climate crisis meets fireworks in confusing Japanese anime

Yoshitoshi Shinomiya’s beautiful debut feature is sure to excite fans of Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, even if a muddled plot lets it down.

videocam
A still from A New Dawn, directed by Yoshitoshi Shinomiya. Lead characters voiced by Riku Hagiwara and Kotone Furukawa. Photo: A New Dawn Film Partners
Asian cinema: Chinese films

Review | We Are All Strangers: Anthony Chen’s epic look at fatherhood in Singapore

A beautiful conclusion to Anthony Chen’s ‘Growing Up’ trilogy, We Are All Strangers is a study of family and love in all its forms.

Malaysia

‘I carry him with me’: Michelle Yeoh’s tearful tribute to parents at Berlinale

The Malaysian actress received the Honorary Golden Bear award during the opening gala of the event in Germany.

videocam
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Asian cinema

Move over Bollywood, Indian art-house cinema is on the rise

Films such as All We Imagine as Light, Sister Midnight and Santosh are showing a different side to Indian cinema and attracting global fans.

videocam
Kani Kusruti (left) and Divya Prabha in a still from All We Imagine as Light.
Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

10 of the best movies from the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival

Sex, love, spies, fame, family, trauma and plenty of politics were on the menu at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

videocam
European cinema

Coming-of-age drama, Chinese director win Berlin film festival awards

Dreams (Sex Love) by Norway’s Dag Johan Haugerud awarded Golden Bear, while Living the Land earns China’s Huo Meng director prize in Berlin.

videocam
Asian cinema: Korean films

Review | What Does that Nature Say to You: Hong Sang-soo finds humour in domesticity

Korean director’s film examines, with humour, the difficulties of artistic life through the lens of a man meeting his girlfriend’s family.

videocam
Ha Seong-guk (left) and Kwon Hae-hyo in a still from What Does that Nature Say to You. Photo: Jeonwonsa Film Co
American cinema

Review | Blue Moon: tender drama starring Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley

Richard Linklater’s new film sees long-time collaborator Ethan Hawke play the American lyricist Lorenz Hart as he struggles with fading fame.

Margaret Qualley (left) and Ethan Hawke in a still from Blue Moon, directed by Richard Linklater. Photo: Sabrina Lantos/Sony Pictures
Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

In Queerpanorama, Hong Kong’s Jun Li has made his boldest film yet

Director drew from his own experiences for Queerpanorama, about a man meeting foreign men for sex in Hong Kong. It’s got Berlin buzzing.

videocam
Asian cinema: Chinese films

Review | Girls on Wire: Wen Qi shines in Vivian Qu’s uneven genre blender

Taiwanese actress shows her versatility as a soap star turned stuntwoman in a film marred by narrative confusion and a sudden tonal change.

videocam
Asian cinema: Korean films

Review | Mickey 17, wild sci-fi satire from Parasite’s Bong Joon-ho

Robert Pattinson plays the titular Mickey, a loser sent into space, where he is cloned with hilarious results in this cult-novel adaptation.

videocam
Robert Pattinson as Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 in a still from Bong Jooh-ho’s sci-fi comedy Mickey 17, screened at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. Naomi Ackie and Mark Ruffalo co-star. Photo: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
American cinema

Review | Dreams, chilling film with Jessica Chastain about US-Mexico ties

Jessica Chastain plays the rich lover of an illegal immigrant in Michel Franco’s exploration of America’s relationship with poorer neighbour.

Jessica Chastain in a still from Dreams, directed by Michel Franco and co-starring Isaac Hernández. Photo: Teorema
Asian cinema: Chinese films

Review | Living the Land a captivating tale of upheaval in 1990s rural China

Non-professional actors and stunning camerawork lift this engrossing story of the drastic changes experienced in rural China.

Hong Kong celebrities and icons

Profile | From child star to activist, Hong Kong actress Josephine Siao’s career

Josephine Siao began her acting career aged 6 and made over 100 films before becoming deaf. She is an activist against child sexual abuse.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

Review | All Shall Be Well: Hong Kong LGBTQ drama highlights legal loophole

Starring Patra Au, Tai Bo and Leung Chung-hang, director Ray Yeung’s LGBTQ drama All Shall Be Well sees an elderly Hong Kong lesbian at risk of losing everything after her partner suddenly dies.

videocam
Patra Au in a still from the movie All Shall Be Well (category IIB; Cantonese). Tai Bo and Leung Chung-hang co-star in this Hong Kong LGBTQ drama directed by Ray Yeung.
Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

10 of the best movies at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival

Kristen Stewart in lesbian crime flick Love Lies Bleeding, trans tale I Saw the TV Glow, and Min Bahadur Bham’s Himalayan film Shambhala all feature in our picks of the best movies at Berlin 2024.

videocam
Asian cinema: Korean films

Review | The Roundup: Punishment – Ma Dong-seok returns as po-faced punching machine

The Roundup: Punishment, which premiered at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, sees Korean hard man Ma Dong-seok return as a no-nonsense cop who punches his way through a gang of internet scammers.

videocam
Asian cinema: Chinese films

Review | Above the Dust: Wang Xiaoshuai evokes Christopher Nolan in rural drama

Above the Dust follows a 10-year-old boy in China who dreams of owning a water pistol, and who goes on a journey through his grandfather’s memories of the 1950s and his terrible misdeeds at the time.

Above the Dust follows a 10-year-old boy in China who dreams of owning a water pistol, and who goes on a journey through his grandfather’s memories of the 1950s and his terrible misdeeds at the time.
Asian cinema

Review | Shambhala: first Nepalese movie ever to compete in Berlin is a masterpiece

Shambala, the first Nepalese film selected for the Berlin Film Festival’s main competition, is an unhurried masterpiece about a Nepalese woman searching for her husband in the Himalayas.

videocam
Thinley Lhamo in a still from Shambhala. Photo: Aditya Basnet/Shooney Films
European cinema

Review | Spaceman: Netflix sci-fi drama starring Adam Sandler squanders its potential

Starring Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan and Paul Dano, Netflix sci-fi Spaceman – which premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival – has its moments, but director Johan Renck struggles to sustain interest.

videocam
Asian cinema

Review | Black Tea: film about African life in China massively disappoints

Debuting at Berlin 2024, Black Tea, the first film about Africans in China made by an African filmmaker, exhibits a tone-deaf understanding of what the diaspora’s experience is like in the country.

videocam
Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

‘Shocking’ true stories on Hong Kong gay couples’ rights inspire new film

Ray Yeung’s film All Shall Be Well, about the struggles of a gay woman after her partner dies, is based on ‘shocking’ true events. The Hong Kong director talks about rights for same-sex couples.

videocam
Maggie Li (left) and Patra Au in a still from All Shall Be Well. Photo: Mise en Scene filmproduction.
Asian cinema: Korean films

Review | A Traveler’s Needs: Isabelle Huppert leads Hong Sang-soo’s latest enigma

Korean director Hong Sang-soo returns to the Berlin International Film Festival with another typically opaque drama – in A Traveler’s Needs, Isabelle Huppert plays a mystery woman teaching French in Korea.

videocam
Isabelle Huppert in a still from A Traveler’s Needs. Photo: Jeonwonsa Film Co
Asian cinema: Chinese films

Review | Some Rain Must Fall: Chinese drama exposes cracks in a middle-class family

Director Qiu Yang’s Some Rain Must Fall centres on a well-off woman whose family fragments after an accident, in a critique on damaging dysfunctions present in the lives of China’s middle class.

European cinema

Review | Another End: Gael Garcia Bernal lights up a derivative sci-fi tale

Gael Garcia Bernal plays a widower whose wife is reanimated in the body of another woman (Renate Reinsve). Piero Messina’s film is hackneyed and gets bogged down in jargon, but is visually appealing.

videocam
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Help preserve 120 years of quality journalism.
SUPPORT NOW
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement