The Middle East and North Africa will once again register a strong presence at the Berlin International Film Festival (February 12-22), with 14 feature and six short productions and co-productions from the region selected across various sections, including the Main Competition and the competitive Perspectives, as well as the audience favourite Panorama, the aesthetically attuned Forum, Generation, dedicated to young filmmakers and audiences, and the respectable Berlinale Classics.
Yet, similar to Cannes, the majority of the contemporary features – 10 out of 14 – are European productions and co-productions.
This once again confirms the patronising attitude of major festivals toward small and less subsidised cinematographies: in order to fall into their selections, most MENA filmmakers are expected to subject themselves to external rules, while these international forums appear incapable or simply unwilling to discover truly authentic cinematic approaches born in native lands, the ones not being monitored by Western producers and mentors.
Notably, the feature film selection carefully considers gender parity, with seven films directed by women and the other seven by men, while, on the other hand, established auteurs appear alongside filmmakers working under censorship, surveillance, or forced displacement, underscoring both the resilience of the region's cinema and the constraints under which it continues to flourish.
Morocco in focus at the European Film Market
Morocco has been named the Country in Focus at the Berlin International Film Festival's industry platform, known also as the European Film Market (EFM), placing one of the region's most internationally connected film cultures at the centre of Berlinale's industry platform.
Long positioned as a bridge between Africa, the Arab world and Europe, Morocco combines a robust national cinema with an infrastructure attractive to global productions, including diverse locations, a 30 percent cash rebate and multiple co-production treaties.
Initiatives such as the Ateliers de l'Atlas have further strengthened the country's role in supporting emerging Moroccan and regional filmmakers.
Festival Director Tricia Tuttle highlighted the significance of this focus, not without a nuance of exoticising in her tone, by noting that "Moroccan voices bring distinctive perspectives to the Berlinale and to festivals worldwide, drawing on deep cultural roots while speaking to contemporary issues with originality and power."
Mohammad-Reda Benjelloun, Director of the Centre Cinématographique Marocain (CCM), adds: "A land of history and storytellers. With its natural landscapes, skilled professionals, and vibrant energy, the Kingdom of Morocco holds a prominent place on the world cinema map. Being the country in focus in Berlin is a testament to how culture and coexistence nurture an art form and a language that have become truly universal: cinema."
While the spotlight signals international recognition of Morocco's cinematic ecosystem, it also reflects broader questions about authorship, equity, and visibility within transnational production models that are still largely shaped by European oversight, clearly emphasising the country's dependence on the Western industry.
Alongside the 14 feature films, the Berlinale will screen four new short MENA works, including Fruits of Despair by Nima Nassaj (Iran), The Weary Hours of Two Lab Assistants by Burak Çevik (Turkey, Germany, UK, Croatia), White by Navroz Shaban (Iraqi Kurdistan Region) and Gravity by Dalya Keleş (Turkey).
The broad programme also includes two historical short classics: Sad Song of Touha (1972) by Egyptian documentary pioneer Atteyat Al Abnoudy and The Dislocation of Amber (1975) by Sudanese filmmaker Hussein Shariffe.
Morocco's presence is further highlighted in Berlinale Classics by the restored feature masterpiece Mirage by Ahmed Bouanani (1979), which wraps the following more descriptive list of the feature titles:
No Good Men
Shahrbanoo Sadat | Afghanistan, Germany, France, Norway, Denmark
Opening Film
Set in Kabul shortly before the Taliban's return to power, No Good Men follows a television camerawoman balancing career ambition, romance and motherhood in a city on the brink.
Sadat, whose earlier films premiered in Cannes' Directors' Fortnight, continues her long-term exploration of Afghan womanhood under pressure, blending personal vulnerability with political urgency.
In a Whisper
Leyla Bouzid | Tunisia, France
Competition
Leyla Bouzid returns to the Berlinale Competition with a tender, quietly suspenseful family drama. When Lilia returns to Tunisia from Paris for her uncle's funeral, she is forced to confront family secrets and the life she has kept hidden, including her relationship with another woman.
Moving between intimacy and investigation, the film blends emotional realism with playful formal touches.
Bouzid, whose debut À peine j'ouvre les yeux premiered in Venice and became an international success, once again crafts a nuanced intergenerational portrait anchored by a strong ensemble led by Hiam Abbass.
Yellow Letters
İlker Çatak | Turkey, Germany, France
Competition
Set against the tightening grip of state repression, Yellow Letters follows a celebrated theatre-making couple whose lives unravel after a single incident turns them into political targets.
Forced to relocate from Ankara to Istanbul, economic pressure and ideological compromise strain both their marriage and their bond with their daughter.
Çatak, whose previous The Teachers' Lounge earned an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film, brings precision and moral clarity to a drama that speaks directly to contemporary Turkey while resonating far beyond it.
Salvation
Emin Alper | Turkey, France, Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, Saudi Arabia
Competition
In a remote mountain village, the return of an exiled clan reignites an old land feud, drawing religious fervour and political ambition into dangerous alignment.
As visions and power struggles escalate, Emin Alper constructs a tense allegory about faith, authority and collective violence.
A Berlinale regular, Alper once again draws on his background in history to build a moral landscape where belief becomes both refuge and weapon.
Chronicles from the Siege
Abdallah Alkhatib | Palestine, Algeria, France
Perspectives
Depicting daily life under siege, Alkhatib's debut fiction feature follows an ensemble of ordinary people grappling with hunger, fear and moral exhaustion.
Moments of intimacy and dark humour punctuate the violence, insisting on humanity amid destruction. A former human rights activist, Alkhatib brings documentary urgency to a narrative shaped by lived experience.
Only Rebels Win
Danielle Arbid | Lebanon, France, Qatar
Panorama
Set in a Beirut teetering on the brink of collapse, Danielle Arbid's latest film follows an unlikely romance between Suzanne, a middle-aged widow, and Osmane, a young undocumented Sudanese man.
As their relationship deepens, social hostility mounts, exposing entrenched racism, classism and moral panic – a plot very much resembling Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1974 classic Fear Eats the Soul.
Arbid, whose work has screened widely at Cannes and beyond, transforms private intimacy into a political act, confronting a society quick to judge yet slow to reckon with its own fractures.
Roya
Mahnaz Mohammadi | Iran, Germany, Czechia, Luxembourg
Panorama
Shot underground and shaped by lived experience, Roya traces the psychological fragmentation of a political prisoner in Tehran's Evin Prison.
Moving fluidly between memory, hallucination and confinement, the film explores how solitary imprisonment reshapes perception and identity.
Mohammadi, an Iranian filmmaker and women's rights activist who has herself been incarcerated, delivers a stark, interior work that resists spectacle in favour of testimony.
Safe Exit
Mohammed Hammad | Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Qatar, Germany
Panorama
Haunted by witnessing his father's murder as a child, Samaan now works as a security guard in Cairo, numbing himself to the past.
An unexpected friendship with a homeless woman forces buried trauma to resurface. Continuing the social sensitivity of his debut, Withered Green, Mohammed Hammad crafts a restrained urban drama about survival, guilt, and a fragile connection in a city shaped by violence.
The Other Side of the Sun
Tawfik Sabouni | Syria, Belgium, France, Saudi Arabia
Panorama
After the fall of Assad's regime, filmmaker Tawfik Sabouni returns to Saidnaya prison, where he was once detained, accompanied by four fellow survivors.
Through carefully staged re-enactments filmed inside the former prison, this poignant documentary gives form to experiences that language alone cannot contain.
Thus, Sabouni's film becomes both a personal reckoning and a collective memorial to those who did not survive.
Cesarean Weekend
Mohammad Shirvani | Iran
Forum
Set over a summer gathering by the Caspian Sea, Cesarean Weekend observes shifting relationships, masculinity and generational tension through an open, improvisational structure.
Shirvani avoids overt political statements, instead tracing a parallel social reality shaped by affection, silence and bodily presence. His live-direction method creates a cinema of immediacy that resists closure or moral judgment.
The Day of Wrath: Tales from Tripoli
Rania Rafei | Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
Forum
Blending family memory, archival footage and political history, Rania Rafei maps the upheavals that have shaped Tripoli from independence to the present.
Structured as a cinematic letter to her late father, the film interweaves personal loss with collective disillusionment.
Rafei, a veteran documentary filmmaker, crafts an essayistic portrait of a city oscillating between hope and erasure.
Hear the Yellow
Banu Sıvacı | Turkey
Forum
Returning to her Anatolian village after years away, Suna becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind her sister's death, long buried under communal silence.
Anchored by a powerful central performance and rich visual textures, Banu Sıvacı's second feature confirms the promise of her award-winning debut Güvercin, offering a meditation on grief, denial and female persistence.
Ghost School
Seemab Gul | Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Germany
Generation Kplus
When her village school closes amid rumours of possession, ten-year-old Rabia challenges superstition and patriarchy in pursuit of education.
Blending social realism with magical elements, Seemab Gul's debut feature expands on themes explored in her award-winning short Sandstorm, offering a politically sharp story for younger audiences.
Mirage
Ahmed Bouanani | Morocco (1979)
Berlinale Classics
A foundational work of Moroccan cinema, Mirage returns in a meticulous 4K restoration.
Set during the colonial era, the film follows a villager whose discovery of a bundle of money sets in motion a moral and existential drift through the city of Salé.
Poet and screenwriter Ahmed Bouanani (1938–2011), a key figure in Morocco's modern cinema, made films "the way he wrote poems," and Mirage remains a quietly radical landmark that further underlines Morocco's historical presence at this year's Berlinale.
Mariana Hristova is a freelance film critic, cultural journalist, and programmer. She contributes to national and international outlets and has curated programs for Filmoteca de Catalunya, Arxiu Xènctric, and goEast Wiesbaden, among others. Her professional interests include cinema from the European peripheries and archival and amateur films