Columbia Alumni and Faculty Bring Their Films to 76th Berlinale Film Festival

Columbia alumni and faculty continue to showcase their work at the Berlinale Film Festival, hosted in its titular city, this year for its 76th edition. Columbia alums and faculty are involved in seven projects competing across multiple categories in this highly prestigious film festival.

Kevin Contento '18, a Directing alum and Colombian-American filmmaker, will screen his documentary The Moths & The Flame, marking the film's world premiere. Described as "a free, poetic form of cinematic language," the film is a look at a community of Black men and recent fathers in Pahokee, Florida, a small agricultural city. Contento lived amongst this community for a year while filming this documentary, observing the men at home as well as their engagement with the community through activities like rabbit hunting. In this film, Contento works to contradict "the myth of the absent Black father on a day-to-day basis," drawing from his own experience of recent fatherhood. Contento’s film is screening in the Forum section, which features films reflecting on the medium of film, and the notion of "aesthetic obstinancy."

Creative producing alum Ewing Luo '18 worked as the associate producer on Panda, a film about a group of "wraithlike figures" living on the decaying icy riverbank of the Chinese city Nanjing. Included in this cast of characters is a poet with verses that can heal, a young woman who is traumatized after a close friend becomes a monk, a vagabond searching for a dragon to send back into the sky, and a dog who consumed a severed fingertip. Panda features fictional scenes that dissolve into documentary images, creating a genre-pushing work that pushes the surrealist into the hyper real. The film is also screening in the Forum section of the festival. 

Speedy!, a film set in 1989 Seoul written and directed by Jiin Oh '24, will screen in the Generation Kplus section, which features films under 20 minutes that center on the perspective of a child or adolescent character. The film follows a young girl named Jing-min who attends class at a speed reading institute. There she meets Dong-hyun, a prodigy who can read an entire book in 60 seconds. Inspired by Dong-hyun’s ability, Jing-min decides to devote herself to the practice in the hopes of competing with Dong-hyun on stage.

Anne Goursaud '73, acted as an editorial consultant on Yo (Love Is A Rebellious Bird) , a documentary following director Anna Finch as she attempts to recreate a decade-long friendship with an older woman named Yo through the act of rebuilding a 1/3rd scale model of Yo’s house. In the house, Anna uses puppets to recreate her friendship with Yo who she met when she was 24 and Yo was 73. Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird) borrows from the intimate form with "Anna’s creative interpretations of Yo’s dramatic life stories," creating a movie that "blurs memory, time and invention" and "reveals the power of artistic creation to channel—and share—grief and love." The film, the sole documentary-feature in this category, is a part of the Berlinale’s main competition and is eligible for the prestigious Golden and Silver Bear awards. 

Producing alum Apoorva Charan '18 is credited as a producer in Take Me Home, a film about Anna, a 38-year-old Korean woman with cognitive disabilities taking care of her aging parents in a Florida suburb. Take Me Home is part of the Perspectives category, featuring debut films from emerging directors around the world. Berlinale will mark the international premiere of Take Me Home. This film is directed by the Korean-American filmmaker Liz Sargent.

Saim Sadiq '19 edited Lali, a film about a young, recently-married Pakistani woman named Zeba who seeks refuge in two women, her sharp-tongued mother-in-law and a quiet neighbor. A dark comedy, Lali examines life in the shantytowns of Sahiwal where "ghosts walk with the living and prophecies press heavy[ily]." Lali is screening in the Panorama section, which features international films that exemplify contemporary film practices in content and form, described as having "its finger on the pulse of contemporary international cinema."

Associate Professor of Film Anocha Suwichakornpong will enjoy the European premiere of her film Narrative as part of the Forum Expanded section of the festival. Narrative is a film about the 2010 Thai military massacre of "Red Shirts" protestors, a pro-democracy group in Bangkok. In Narrative, Suwichakornpong restages a fictional trial for the individuals involved in this act of violence which has never been acknowledged or accounted for. Part film, part staging, political reflection, and archive-creation, "Suwichakornpong creates a space where documentary evidence and imaginative reconstruction converge, challenging viewers to confront the gaps in official narratives." Seeking to blur boundaries, Narrative is "a haunting meditation on truth, representation and the unfinished work of history—asking what cinema can accomplish when traditional paths to justice have been foreclosed."

The Berlinale Film Festival was founded in 1951 and is considered one of the big five film festivals in the world and big three in Europe (alongside the Cannes Film Festival and Venice). The festival gets around 8,000 submissions annually and screens 400 and aims to show films that highlight both artistic excellency, creative diversity, and political and social relevancy. Awards are given for both the creative and production aspects of the films, as well as individual performances. Past winners include Rose Byrne’s performance in If I Had Legs I Would Kick You (2025), Spirited Away (2002), and 12 Angry Men (1957). 

See here for the full lineup of the Berlinale’s 76th film festival.