MFA Film alums Moara Passoni '21 and Eda Çarikçi '23 have been selected to join the 2026 Berlinale Talents Program. The theme of this year’s program is Creating (and) Confusion - Cinema, Chaos and the Power of Discomfort.
Berlinale Talents is a unique development program which maintains a mission to explore "the how and why of movie making." The program brings together the cinematic community and features "a Summit with public talks, discipline-specific workshops, networking events and two spaces for project development, the Berlinale Talents Lab and the Talent Project Market."
Passoni’s debut feature essay, Êxtase, screened at CPH:DOX, MoMA’s Doc Fortnight, and Visions du Réel. She co-wrote and associate-produced Petra Costa's Academy Award-nominated The Edge of Democracy, and was the main writing collaborator and second-unit director on the Oscar-shortlisted Apocalypse in the Tropics. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s "25 New Faces of Independent Film." Passoni is a founding member of the Brazilian Filmmaker Collective, and is currently developing her first narrative feature film and a scripted TV series.
Çarikçi is a screenwriter and producer from Turkey. A film she produced and acted in, Öte, made its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. Mendirek, another of Çarikçi’s producing credits, was screened at many festivals including the Atlanta Film Festival where it was nominated for Narrative Feature, the Adana Film Festival where it won Best Supporting Actor and Best Director, and the Bosphorus Film Festival where it was nominated for Best Feature Film. She is currently producing a film titled Midnight Sun.
