Final Girls Film Festival
Unafraid of leaning into desire, danger and the uncanny, Final Girls Film Festival delivers its most international programme to date, with the kind of genre savvy that reminds us why scary movies remain cinema’s most thrilling playground. From full-blown cinematic panic attack If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025) to sinuously twisted love story Honey Bunch (2025) horror, that ever-resilient cinematic beast is well-fed. This year will also see the festival’s first-ever FGB Live Score event. Horror prog trio Pavone Cristallo will accompany Maya Deren’s occult favourite, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), and Germaine Dulac’s The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928), breathing new, sonic life into these foundational works of experimental cinema. Two hands-on sound workshops, ‘Make Your Own Damn Sounds: How to Make Sound Effects and Foley for Your Film’ and ‘Hysterics Unplugged: the Sound of Horror’, further underline the festival’s commitment to the craft behind the chills. Final Girls Film Festival lures us in with an impressively rich programme: thoughtful, provocative and gleefully unafraid of the dark.
- City Kino Wedding & select online screenings, Mar 4-8, details.
Mark Reeder’s Mystery Movie Night
Just like with a box of chocolates, with this mystery movie night, you never know what you’re gonna get. For each event, Mark Reeder picks a movie to screen to an intimately sized audience, but the selection remains a closely guarded secret right up until the moment the film starts. It could be a comedy, it could be horror, it could be a rare sci-fi gem – you just don’t know! One thing is guaranteed: the choices are never boring.
- Backhaus Projects, Mar 11, Starts 19:30, details.
Vierte Welle Film Festival
If ever there were a festival that proudly wears its heart on its sleeve (along with its politics and cinematic ambition) it’s Vierte Welle. Berlin’s international feminist and queer short film festival returns in 2026 to champion voices that are too often pushed to the margins. It delivers a programme that feels not just timely, but quietly essential. Hosted in the intimate, much-loved surroundings of Lichtblick Kino, the festival offers rigorously curated cinema that questions, provokes and reaffirms film’s power to reshape how we see the world. Founded in 2019 and rooted in the principles of fourth-wave feminism, Vierte Welle has grown into a vital international platform for queer and FLINTA+ filmmakers. Its mission is refreshingly direct: to highlight the stories so often overlooked, while confronting inequality and discrimination and pushing back against prejudice through fiction, documentary and experimental short films alike.
- Lichtblick Kino, Mar 13-15, details.
Irish Film Festival
From Cillian Murphy to Paul Mescal to Barry Keoghan, Irish talent has been dominating the international film stage lately. Celebrate Irish cinema in Berlin on the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day with a curated selection of films, documentaries and visual art shorts. There will also be some traditional live music on Saturday when Babylon will be bathed in green light. Come for the films, stay for the craic!
- Babylon in Berlin, Mar 13-17, details.
Jawbreaker (1999)
I love this film. I love the cast, the music, the colours, the story. I love the subgenre of morbid and libidinal teen movies that this fell into. I love the humour and memories it gives me. I love it so much because it’s merciless and precise, a darkly funny dissection of high school cruelty disguised as a glossy teen comedy. Every line drips with venom; every performance – we love a Pam Grier cameo – is perfectly calibrated chaos. Darren Stein’s Jawbreaker doesn’t just entertain; it exposes the savage hierarchy of popularity with wit and bite. As part of Yorck’s Fetch series, this one is so much more than that overused analogy alludes. It’s powderroom perfection of all that was great about the movies at that time. Don’t miss it.
- Yorck Odeon, Mar 18, details
Queer Media Society: Fat Girls
In October 2025, Axel Ranisch was awarded the QMS Respect Award at the Hessian Film and Cinema Awards. This newly introduced honour, presented by the Queer Media Society, recognises individuals or collectives whose work has made a significant and lasting contribution to queer visibility on screen. At Klick Kino on March 24, Axel will appear in person to introduce his debut feature, Fat Girls. Originally created as Ranisch’s graduation film, this tender, quietly subversive love story follows Sven (Heiko Pinkowski), who sets off with Daniel (Peter Trabner), his mother’s caregiver, to search for his mother after she wanders off as a result of dementia. Along the way, what begins as a practical mission gradually transforms into something far more intimate, as an unexpected romance takes root between the two men. It’s a film that wears its compassion lightly, finding warmth and humanity in places cinema too often overlooks.
- KLICK Kino, Mar 18, details.
Greek Film Festival
The forthcoming 11th edition of Berlin’s Greek Film Festival promises to be another rewarding celebration of the country’s cinema, returning to the historic Babylon in Mitte. The upcoming edition positions Berlin as a vital meeting point between contemporary Greek filmmaking and an international audience, as it continues to balance tradition, innovation and a deep love of the big screen. Adding further weight to the programme is a special spotlight on Angeliki Papoulia, an actor whose presence looms large over modern Greek cinema. A defining figure of the so-called ‘Greek Weird Wave’, Papoulia is best known for her fearless, boundary-pushing performances in films such as Dogtooth and The Lobster – roles that helped propel Greek cinema onto the international stage. Her work, marked by precision, physicality and an unnerving emotional clarity, has earned her a near-mythic status. There will be plenty of incredible premieres and wonderful surprises in store.
- Babylon in Berlin, Mar 25-29, details
11 Millimeter – International Football Film Festival
If cinema and football had a love-child, it would be 11 Millimeter, a festival where the beautiful game is both hero and metaphor. Now in its 21st edition, this is the world’s first and largest festival dedicated entirely to football films. Forget locker room clichés and goal montages: 11 Millimeter showcases feature films, documentaries and shorts from around the world, each using football as a prism to explore cultural, social and political realities – from community passion and identity crises to class struggles and gender politics. There will be awards including the Golden 11 (Audience Award), which is your chance to champion the crowd-pleaser of the festival. Also expect jury prize(s) for artistic and thematic excellence and 11MM Shortkicks: a glamorous gala celebrating the best football short film of the year.
- Colosseum Filmtheater, Mar 26-30, details.
