Berlin Film Festival 2018: Everything we know so far

With this year’s Sundance kicking us into the film fest season, next up will be the 2018 Berlin Film Festival, or Berlinale as it’s better known. With just under a month until the 68th annual event, we decided to take a look at what’s in store for the leading festival dedicated to celebrating outstanding creatives from the fields of film and drama series.

First up, the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s stop-motion flick Isle of Dogs kicks off the Berlinale Competition as the opening night film. That’s quite an achievement – in fact, it’ll be the first animated movie in Berlinale history to do so. Other early bird titles in Competition include Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot and Benoît Jacquot’s Eva. Although Van Sant received criticism over his choice of lead actor, the film has been described as a must-see by critics.

Over in the Specials corner, Berlinale will be showcasing Raman Hui’s 3D fantasy action film Monster Hut 2 as well as Paul Williams’s documentary Gurrumul, charting the life of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu – one of the most important and acclaimed voices ever to come out of Australia. For more additions, head over to Deadline to check out the lineup of Competition and Specials entries announced so far. (Keep in mind there will be more to come – patience guys, patience).

Now over to the Forums corner, where its sidebar has now been completed at 44 films, 35 of which are world premieres. Among the offerings is Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline, starring Molly Parker (Kissed) and Miranda July (The Future) in a story exploring the analogies of creativity & insanity.

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s new feature Grass is also in the Forum with its story on the theme of life and death, revolving around a cafe and the people who visit it. Other contenders include Ted Fendt’s second film, Classical Period, Berlinale newcomer Sergei Loznitsa with Victory Day, and Ricky D’Ambrose with his first feature Notes on an Appearance. With so many newcomers in the list there’s a lot of potential in this year’s Forum category.

How could we forget the handpicked projects for the Berlinale Series category? Australian drama Picnic at Hanging Rock and AMC series The Terror are among the seven scripted TV shows featured in the lineup, in addition to the highly anticipated German drama Bad Banks from director Christian Schwochow and Hulu‘s 9/11 drama The Looming Tower from Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney.

And finally, leading the Berlinale Co-Pro lineup are eight television projects seeking funding in hope of becoming the next Babylon Berlin. This year’s entries include In A Heartbeat, the latest project from Israeli writers Shani Melamed Nitzan & Gaya Wildman, and Irish crime series Costigan.

Keep your eyes peeled for more entries in the forthcoming weeks. With so many promising new projects (and a Wes Anderson premiere to boot) the Berlin Film Festival can’t come soon enough!