Who will win the Bear at Berlin? [2026 edition]

Rooting for Gomis, Schanelec or Schleinzer, I think.

Not going to lie, joke or no I don't think I recognize a single one of those directors. That's kinda cool, though.

Kornél Mundruczó did that 'dead baby' film a couple of years back with Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf. Some of the others are, like, MUBI-known. But it's even more obscure than usual, I think.

Grant Gee did a Radiohead video, I think?

"Mubi-known" lol. I guess that's how I know Karim Aïnouz. I'd be prepared to believe that he *may* have something excellent in his future?!? My country of residence means that I also know Warwick Thornton's oeuvre fairly well. (He also won the Camera d'Or some 15 years ago (?) but I think it's fair to say he's been kinda patchy.)

Karin has great movies I would recommend:
• Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures
• I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You (this is almost a Chris Marker-lite movie/road movie in the northeast of Brazil)
• The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão

The first two can go on my watchlist methinks. Cheers. I had a soft spot for the one with faintly Chris Marker-ish musings on travelling to his father's Algerian birthplace, despite part of me craving a tighter edit. :)

I guess I've seen a couple of Mahamat-Saleh Haroun films too. They were... pretty good, from memory.

Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures is directed by Marcelo Gomes, the co-director of I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You, but co-written and produced by Aïnouz, and it is indeed quite good. Aïnouz' debut Madame Satã is absolutely worth checking out, and honestly his last film, Motel Destino, is an enjoyable neon-lit erotic thriller. This new one looks pretty awful, though.

Alain Gomis did a great docu-essay based on footage of Thelonious Monk on a French music program in the sixties. It's called Rewind & Play and on Mubi, at least in Denmark.

So far it seems like a pretty boring year, but the trailer to Markus Schleinzers 'Rose' looks very good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80xR3G5eowo

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Markus Schleinzer's first 2 films are really good, glad to see he finally has something new.

I've been intrigued (and/or faintly bewildered) by some Angela Schanelec films recently; enough to put this year's on my watchlist, at least.

Another mention of Schleinzer is surely my cue to better inform myself...

Co-sign on the first two being really really good. He has a bit of the same kind of claustrophobic symmetric imagery like Seidl, Geyrhalter, Hausner, but only a bit, and he does something very different with it. Really underrated director.

the irony of them displaying this at a berlin film festival venue pic.twitter.com/ItvMsut18P

— jana @ berlinale 🍿 (@burntsouffle) February 18, 2026

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Well, I forgot to vote, but the stories from the festival hasn't exactly been about good movies anyway... Rooting for Schleinzer, I think.

And 'Yellow Letters' by İlker Çatak wins it. His last film was Oscar-nominated and won all the German Film Awards. So that's probably a waste of time.

Ahhhh right, I was faintly aware of The Teachers' Lounge. It's sitting there on Kanopy daring me to watch it...

The whole festival might genuinely self-destruct: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/25/berlin-film-festival-managers-to-meet-for-talks-amid-gaza-rows

I think they might really try to fire Tricia Tuttle, because I just got a press release from the European Film Academy talking about how great they think she is. So the EFA definitely thinks the threat is real. I really don't think the German government realize how bad their reputation will be in the European film world, if they fire the second director in two years, and this time because she showed too much sympathy towards Palestinian directors at the festival...