In Competition, presented by Anke Blondé, there is Dust, whose screenplay was realised in the frame of ScriptLab 2019 by the Belgian writer Angelo Tijssens. Set at the end of the 1990s – during the height of the Belgian tech boom –, the story shows visionary entrepreneurs Luc and Geert watching their empire collapse as news of their fraud breaks. With just one day of freedom left, they part ways in search of redemption.
In the Panorama section we find the debut feature by Ian de la Rosa, Iván & Hadoum, which the Spanish director developed within the Next Feature Film programme in 2022. The film – a Spanish-German co-production – is set in southern Spain and stars Iván, a trans man, and the woman he falls in love with, Hadoum, newly hired at the greenhouse where he works: together they must face opposition from their families and co-workers.
Selected for the Forum section, another work developed thanks to TFL, as part of the 2021 edition of the Red Sea Lodge: The Day Of Wrath: Tales From Tripoli, a documentary by Lebanese director Rania Rafei. The film traces the history of Tripoli – Lebanon’s second-largest city – and its uprisings, from the 1940s to the present day, through different generations and factions.
76th Berlinale will open its doors with the third feature of Shahrbanoo Sadat: No Good Men. The multi-award-winning Afghan director entered the TFL community in 2016 with The Orphanage, then presented at the Cannes’ Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in 2019.
In Competition, also Alain Gomis – winner of the TFL Audience Design Fund in 2016 for Félicité – presents his new title Dao.
With them, in the rich programme of the Festival, other ten alumni and alumnae – filmmakers who previously took part in TFL labs – now at Berlinale 2026 with new projects:
- Heysel 85 by Teodora Ana Mihai - Berlinale Special Gala
- Monster Pabrik Rambut by Edwin - Berlinale Special Midnight
- House of Yang by Stefanie Ren, Mia Spengler - Berlinale Special Series
- Enjoy Your Stay by Dominik Locher, Honeylyn Joy Alipio – Panorama
- Narciso by Marcelo Martinessi - Panorama
- Safe Exit by Mohammed Hammad – Panorama
- Tristan Forever by Tobias Nölle, Loran Bonnardot - Panorama Dokumente
- De capul nostru by Tudor Cristian Jurgiu – Forum
- Lust by Ralitza Petrova - Forum
- Ghost School by Seemab Gul - Generation Kplus
Congratulations to all the selected TFL members!
In the picture: a still from Dust.