Faces of Death follows a pathologist trying to understand what happens when we die, subjecting himself and the viewer to a series of 'snuff' films depicting violent deaths.
Lapid's frenzied and disgusted vision emerges as he follows the fortunes of a young Tel Aviv couple—a jazz pianist known only as Y and a dancer named Yasmine. Their artistic background is overshadowed by their roles as sexy disco clowns at a big outdoor party for the rich and politically connected.
Ali Sbeity painted vibrant portraits and landscapes of his rural hometown in Southern Lebanon, often sharing his works on his Facebook. He participated in numerous local arts exhibitions and created murals for schools in Beirut.
In the film, Bronz's character is commissioned to compose a new national anthem for post-Oct. 7 Israel, and writes a warmongering ballad about destroying Gaza and 'love sanctified in blood.'
There is a scene in "Morgenkreis | Morning Circle" (2025), a 16-mm film by Berlin-based Palestinian artist Basma al-Sharif, that unfolds at the threshold of a daycare center. A young boy clings to his father, his fists locked into the fabric of his coat, his arms wrapped tightly around him. The father gently tries to pry himself free while a daycare worker crouches nearby, attempting to distract the child and coax him inside. It is an ordinary moment, one that anyone who has ever been a child - or cared for one - recognizes instantly, as well as the gut-wrenching feeling it provokes.
Ilker Catak's Yellow Letters and Emin Alper's Salvation, two politically outspoken films that examine Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's autocratic regime, shared the top prizes at this year's Berlinale: the Golden Bear for Catak and Silver for Alper. These striking works share a lot more. Both titles are co-produced by Liman, an indie film company from Turkey.
But rather than walk away from his creative calling, Driven said he pivoted - teaching himself videography and landing his first paid job through a Craigslist post filming Caribbean DJ, and DJ Mad Out. "That opportunity introduced him to New York's Caribbean music scene, where he went on to work with artists such as Shaggy, Ding Dong and Kranium," she said. "Those early experiences sharpened Hillmedo's eye for authenticity, capturing Caribbean culture not as spectacle, but as lived reality," she added.
Set mainly in rural Burkina Faso, the director's homeland, the movie was made in the amateur format of 16-mm film, with a low budget, a small crew, and a largely nonprofessional cast, including several of the filmmaker's family members, as befits its family-centered drama: a young woman named Bintou and a young man named Issa want to marry, but another man, Tiga, aggressively pursues Bintou and threatens Issa's life.
It Was Just an Accident centers on a group of former prisoners who kidnap a man they believe was their interrogator and grapple with whether to exact revenge, and Panahi says the film drew directly from his own experience with state violence and repression. Panahi has been repeatedly arrested in Iran, served prison sentences, and was recently sentenced in absentia to an additional year in prison and a two-year travel ban.
"The show is about giving the pen back to the writer, giving the paintbrush back to the artist, during this time of genocide," the Ridikkuluz told Hyperallergic in an interview at the gallery. "And when there's been so much censorship, these are artists that might not have been able to do this anywhere else."
The Voice of Hind Rajab has been nominated for an Academy Award for best international feature, a recognition for the Tunisian film that features the voice of a 5-year-old girl whose phone call begging for help was heard across the world before she was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. The film is a mix of a documentary and drama that weaves in the recordings of Hind's phone call along with scripted, dramatized scenes of Palestinian Red Crescent dispatchers as they agonized over trying to save her. It was nominated alongside four other films.
The film tells the true story of Hind, who was killed by Israeli forces in 2024 as she and her family tried to evacuate Gaza City, blending recordings of real emergency calls with dramatic re-enactments. It draws on harrowing audio from Hind Rajab's call to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, in which rescuers tried to reassure her as she lay trapped in a bullet-ridden car with the bodies of her aunt, uncle and three cousins, who had all been killed by Israeli fire.
From Reality (2023), Tina Satter's true-to-life portrayal of whistleblower Reality Winner, which progresses in real time from harmless small talk to a full-blown FBI grilling, to Radu Jude's Uppercase Print (2020), in which a rebel teen is given the third degree in Ceausescu-era Romania, the title-card proclamation inspired by true events is being taken to a wholly literal new level.
