Berlin Film Festival Unveils Competition Lineup With Juliette Binoche, Elizabeth Banks Titles

The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the full lineup for its 63rd edition next month.

The event is planned as an in-person fest to run in an abridged, seven-day version Feb. 10-16, with four days of repeat public screenings through Feb. 20.

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Peter von Kant, François Ozon’s gender-flipped adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1972 masterpiece The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, starring Denis Menochet, Isabelle Adjani and Hanna Schygulla, will open the 72nd Berlinale and screen in competition.

Joining it in the race for the 2022 Golden Bear are such competition titles as Claire Denis’ Both Sides of the Blade, starring Juliette Binoche and Titane star Vincent Lindon; Hong Sang-soo’s latest, The Novelist’s Film; Charlotte Gainsbourg starrer The Passengers of the Night from Mikhael Hers; Ulrich Seidel’s Rimini; AEIOU — A Quick Alphabet of Love from German actress turned director Nicolette Krebitz; The Line from Swiss director Ursula Meier; and abortion drama Call Jane, the directorial debut of Carol screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, starring Elizabeth Banks, Kate Mara and Sigourney Weaver, which will premiere at the now-all-virtual Sundance Film Festival.

Berlinale co-directors Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian presented the official lineup via a livestream Wednesday morning, Berlin time. Their 2022 lineup lacks the big studio or streaming films of the sort featured in Venice (Dune, The Power of the Dog) or Cannes (Stillwater, The French Dispatch) last year (Focus Features’ The Outfit, starring Mark Rylance, and Netflix adventure thriller Against The Ice, both out-of-competition special screenings, are the only exceptions) and is further evidence, that, in their third outing as Berlinale festival heads, Chatrian and Rissenbeek are looking to take the world’s No. 3 film festival in a more indie, art house direction.

Alongside Ozon, who has screened several films in Berlin, including 8 Women (2002) and By the Grace of God (2018), several Berlin regulars return to competition this year, including Germany’s Andreas Dresen, a Silver Bear best director winner for Grill Point in 2002, who will present the real-life political drama Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush; 2012 Golden Bear winner Paolo Taviani (Caesar Must Die), who returns to the German capital with Leonora addio, his first film directed solo, without his brother Vittorio; and Canadian auteur Denis Côté, whose film Social Hygiene took the top prize in Berlin’s 2021 Encounters section and whose latest, That Kind of Summer, will screen in competition this year.

The 2022 Encounters section, a separate competitive sidebar for more artistically challenging or experimental films, includes Flux Gourmet, the new film from British director Peter Strickland (Katalin Varga); the Greek drama The City and the City from directors Christos Passalis and Syllas Tzoumerkas; and Queens of the Qing Dynasty from Canadian director Ashley McKenzie starring Sarah Walker and Ziyin Zheng.

Out of competition, Berlin has lined up an impressive group of high-profile titles. Alongside The Outfit, the directorial debut of The Imitation Game screenwriter Graham Moore, the 2022 Berlinale will feature the world premieres of Sophie Hyde’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande starring Emma Thompson and Dario Argento’s new horror film Dark Glasses, featuring his daughter, Italian star Asia Argento.

The Sundance Film Festival canceled its in-person screenings this year and went all-virtual after a surge in COVID-19 infections driven by the omicron variant. Berlin’s industry section, the European Film Market, has gone online-only in the wake of an omicron spike across Europe, but the Berlinale is still determined to hold an in-person event, what Chatrian described as “the essence of film festivals, or at least the essence of the Berlinale.”

The festival got some bad news Wednesday when Germany’s Robert Koch Institute reported more than 112,000 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 infection, the highest number since the pandemic began. In an interview Tuesday night with television network RTL, German health minister Karl Lauterbach said he expects the current wave of COVID infections, driven by the new omicron variant of the coronavirus, to peak in Germany “in mid-February” or right in the middle of the 2022 Berlinale. The German government has introduced new measures to stem the spread of omicron, including requiring proof of vaccination for various indoor activities, including cinema visits, but so far has not shut down theaters entirely.

Among the films already confirmed to be heading to Berlin this year are Laurent Larivière’s French drama About Joan, starring Isabelle Huppert and Lars Eidinger, and period adventure film Against the Ice from Danish director Peter Flinth starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Joe Cole, Heida Reed and Charles Dance. Both will have their world premieres as Berlinale Special Galas during the 2022 festival.

Berlin has unveiled new COVID measures for its 2022 festival, banning parties and public events, requiring vaccination, testing and masking in cinemas, and cutting cinema capacity by 50 percent to allow social distancing. The festival has also chopped three days off its 2022 schedule, with competition films screening Feb. 10-16 and the final four days of the fest, through Feb. 20, set aside for repeat and public screenings. Overall, the 2022 Berlinale will be smaller than last year, with 256 feature-length and short films screening across all sections, compared to 340 titles in 2021.

Berlin’s industry section, the European Film Market, which runs Feb. 10-17, will be online-only again this year.

See the full lineup below.

2022 Berlin International Film Festival Competition

A E I O U – A Quick Alphabet of Love, dir. Nicolette Krebitz

Alcarràs, dir. Carla Simón

Both Sides of the Blade, dir. Claire Denis

Rimini, dir. Ulrich Seidl

Call Jane, dir. Phyllis Nagy

A Piece of Sky, dir. Michael Koch

Everything Will Be Ok, dir. Rithy Panh

The Line, dir. Ursula Meier

Leonora addio, dir. Paolo Taviani

The Passengers of the Night, dir. Mikhaël Hers

Nana (Before, Now & Then), dir. Kamila Andini

Peter von Kant, dir. François Ozon

Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush, dir. Andreas Dresen

Robe of Gems, dir. Natalia López Gallardo

The Novelist’s Film, dir. Hong Sangsoo

One Year, One Night, dir. Isaki Lacuesta

That Kind of Summer, dir. Denis Côté

Return to Dust, dir. Li Ruijun

Encounters 2022

A Little Love Package, dir. Gastón Solnicki

See You Friday, Robinson, dir. Mitra Farahani

Axiom, dir Jöns Jönsson

Brother in Every Inch, dir. Alexander Zolotukhin

Coma, dir. Bertrand Bonello

Father’s Day, dir. Kivu Ruhorahoza

Flux Gourmet, dir. Peter Strickland

The City and the City, dirs. Christos Passalis, Syllas Tzoumerkas

American Journal, dir. Arnaud des Pallières

Small, Slow but Steady, dir. Shô Miyake

MUTZENBACHER, dir. Ruth Beckermann

Queens of the Qing Dynasty, dir. Ashley McKenzie

Sonne, dir. Kurdwin Ayub

Unrest, dir. Cyril Schäublin

The Death of my Mother, dir. Jessica Krummacher

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