Another End by Piero Messina
The 74th edition of the Berlin Film Festival starts tomorrow, February 15, and runs through the 25th. As usual, it will feature multiple Latin American titles from countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Peru in its various categories.
Two Latin American films are featured in the official competition section and are set to compete for the Golden Bear: La cocina by Mexican director and writer Alonso Ruizpalacios and "Pepe" by Dominican director Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias.
Starring Oscar nominated American actress Rooney Mara, La cocina depicts life in the kitchen of a restaurant in New York City, where cultures from around the world blend during the lunchtime rush. Pepe, a co-production between the Dominican Republic, Namibia, Germany, and France, is narrated by the first and last hippopotamus killed in the Americas. Also having its world premiere in the official competition of the German festival is the science fiction romance Another End by Italian director Piero Messina starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal.
Featured in the Encounters section of the Berlinale, which aims to support new perspectives in cinema and provide more room for diverse narrative and documentary forms, three Latin American films will have their world premiere. Cidade; campo, directed by Brazilian filmmaker Juliana Rojas, tells the story of a middle-aged cane cutter who returns to São Paulo, and a doctor who mistakenly medicates a patient with the wrong dosage and is transferred to a small hospital in the countryside.
La cocina by Alonso Ruizpalacios
Also from Brazil, Sleep with Your Eyes Open / Dormir de Olhos Abertos, directed by German-Argentine director Nele Wohlatz, is a comedy of misunderstandings set in a Chinese community in Recife. Argentine director Matías Piñeiro's You Burn Me / Tú me abrasas is based on Cesare Pavese's writings about the poet Sappho.
Three Latin American films will screen in the Panorama section. The Brazilian film Betânia by Marcelo Botta tells the story of a 65-year-old widow, also named Betânia, who is persuaded by her daughters to leave her remote village and embark on a new beginning. In the Costa Rican film Memories of a Burning Body / Memorias de un cuerpo que arde by Antonella Sudasassi, the stories of three elderly women poetically intertwine to create a kaleidoscope of memories, secrets, and longings.
I Saw Three Black Lights / Yo vi tres luces negras by Santiago Lozano Álvarez follows the journey of a wise old man embarking on his final journey into the Colombian jungle in search of a place to die. However, his peaceful transition to the realm of the dead is endangered by illegal armed groups who control the area.
The Forum and Forum Expanded sections of the Berlinale, which delve into the medium of film and socio-artistic discourse, feature a diverse array of Latin American films. In the Forum section, the Colombian film Skin in Spring / La piel en primavera by Yennifer Uribe Alzate, a Chilean co-production, will have its premiere. The film follows Sandra, a security guard at a mall in Medellín, who takes her job seriously but feels it is time to embark on something new.
You Burn Me by Matías Piñeiro
Forum will screen the Argentinean hybrid musical-documentary Reas directed by Lola Arias. The film portrays women re-enacting their lives in a Buenos Aires prison, blending trance and balance, voguing, and singing. The Chilean documentary Oasis, also in its world premiere in Forum, is a timely large-scale canvas of democratic protest, framed within a nationwide movement that formed in the South American country in 2019 to create a new constitution. For three years, the film directed by Tamara Uribe and Felipe Morgado, accompanied Indigenous, feminist, militant, legalistic, anarchist and conservative activists.
Forum Expanded will present the world premiere of the documentary Barrunto, a collaboration between Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom, directed by Emilia Beatriz. This speculative fiction unfolds in a future of the past, amidst a ruptured present, with its expansive network of connections spanning from Puerto Rico to Scotland.
Also premiering is the avant-garde 16mm film performance Nanacatepec, a collaboration between Mexico and Spain, directed by Elena Pardo and Azucena Losana. Inspired by the Nanacatepec rock formation, the film explores a network without a defined shape. Finally, making its international premiere is the Brazilian documentary Quebrante, directed by Janaina Wagner. The film follows a retired teacher as he journeys through the caves, ruins, and phantasmagorias of the Trans-Amazonian Highway.
Reas by Lola Arias
The Generation section of the Berlinale, will host the world premiere of seven Latin American short films: Aguacario, Lapso, A Bird Flew, Raíz, Through Rocks and Clouds, Reinas, The Major Tones, and Uli. Aguacuario, directed by José Eduardo Castilla Ponce, follows a ten-year-old boy in Mexico who embarks on a little three-wheeled adventure.
In Caroline Cavalcanti's Lapso, two teenagers living in the suburbs of Belo Horizonte in Brazil meet while completing a socio-educational scheme and slowly draw closer together. In the Colombian and Cuban film A Bird Flew / Un pájaro voló, directed by Leinad Pájaro De la Hoz, a player on the Cuban national volleyball team is tormented by the memory of a friend who is no longer around.
The Peruvian feature Through Rocks and Clouds / Raíz by Franco García Becerra tells the story of an eight-year-old alpaca herder and soccer lover whose village is endangered by the machinations of a mining company. Also set in Peru, Klaudia Reynicke’s Reinas follows two sisters and their mother on their move to the US from Lima, and their departure is filled with mixed emotions of hope and regret.
Through Rocks and Clouds by Franco García Becerra
The Argentine-Spanish co-production The Major Tones / Los tonos mayores, directed by Ingrid Pokropek, takes place after an accident, which causes 14-year-old Ana to have a metal plate in her arm until it suddenly starts to receive strange messages in Morse code. In Mariana Gil Ríos' Uli, a young girl's exploration encounter with a queer friend and her pet grants her an opportunity to find freedom in an unfamiliar place.
This year's ‘Berlinale Shorts’ section features the world premiere of two short films from Chile and Argentina. Set in Santiago's shimmering summer heat, Towards the Sun, Far from the Center / Al sol, lejos del centro directed by Luciana Merino and Pascal Viveros, is composed of high-res images undergoing a digital zoom that transforms spaces into surfaces and houses into textures and captures small gestures of everyday urban life.
In Francisco Lezama's An Odd Turn / Un movimiento extraño follows a museum security guard in Buenos Aires who foresees a sharp rise in the dollar’s value with her pendulum and falls in love with a currency exchange office employee.
Lastly, the Berlinale Classics section presents the world premiere of the digitally restored version of Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven / Batalla en el cielo. The 2005 film follows a kidnapper who, after causing the death of a baby, seeks redemption in sex and Catholicism. A provocative and visually stunning appraisal of Mexican society's social divide.
