VATERLAND
von Paweł Pawlikowski
In 1949, German writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika embark on a road trip across a Germany in ruins, from US-dominated Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar.
Programm
ARTHOUSE CINEMA with BAR and BISTRO in the heart of NEUKÖLLN
Günstiger ins Kino
Wähle das Modell, das zu dir passt – gültig bei uns und in vielen weiteren Kinos!
This week
VATERLAND
- Tuesday 18:30 /
- Sat 24. Oct 15:00
NAZA
- Tomorrow 13:00 /
- Tomorrow 18:30 /
- Tomorrow 20:00
HOPE
- Sunday 21:15 /
- Fri 23. Oct 21:20
PRIMETIME
- Today 21:30 /
- Tomorrow 16:30 /
- Sat 24. Oct 21:30
BAD APPLES
- Tomorrow 14:30 /
- Sun 25. Oct 21:20
DAS GETRÄUMTE ABENTEUER
- Thursday 13:00 /
- Sunday 11:00
SHAUN DAS SCHAF 3
- Thursday 17:30 /
- Friday 14:30 /
- Friday 17:30
LOVE ISLAND - EPISODE NATURE
- Thursday 19:00
DIGGER
- Thursday 20:50 /
- Friday 21:20 /
- Saturday 21:20
CAMOUFLAGE
- Friday 19:00
SHORT FILM COMPETITION II – UNEXPECTED NATURES
- Saturday 17:00
TO THE VICTORY! / ЗА ПЕРЕМОГУ!
- Saturday 19:00
WHAT THE SHORT?
- Sunday 17:00
EMIL UND DIE DETEKTIVE
- Monday 15:30 /
- Wed 21. Oct 16:00 /
- Fri 23. Oct 14:40
Coming soon
MOSCAS (2026)
WHISTLEBLOWER
What has changed + Fig Tree
THE SHORTS SHOW
GLAUBE
LA BOLA NEGRA
Cineville-Mitglieder kann +1 kostenlos mitbringen
SNEAK PREVIEW
MINOTAURUS
DIE MÖLLNER BRIEFE
NAZA
von Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
In secret conversations on the rooftops of Tel Aviv at night, the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza are revealed by the people who designed and operated them.
HOPE
von Na Hong-jin
In the remote South Korean village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok and officer Sung-ae are called to investigate a mysterious creature wreaking havoc on the community. But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.
PRIMETIME
von Lance Oppenheim
In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen sets out to make television history.
BAD APPLES
von Jonatan Etzler
A struggling primary school teacher begins to make some questionable decisions after one of her students is injured.
DAS GETRÄUMTE ABENTEUER
von Valeska Grisebach
The story of a woman living in the border region between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, who agrees to partake in a special deal in order to help a friend. However, this will lead her into a dangerous situation, and she will have to confront her desires
SHAUN DAS SCHAF 3
von Steve Cox, Matthew Walker
On Halloween Eve at Mossy Bottom Farm, excitement turns to dismay when the clumsy Farmer ruins the pumpkin patch. Shaun tries fixing it with science experiments, but things go wrong when a wild beast appears in the woods.
Ukranïan Film Festival Berlin
LOVE ISLAND - EPISODE NATURE
in cooperation with Takflix
When Island of Love first aired on television in 1995, it largely escaped viewers’ attention because it was broadcast after midnight—and not without reason: it was the first Ukrainian erotic television series. Each of its ten episodes is an adaptation of a work of classic Ukrainian literature, featuring authors ranging from Olha Kobylianska and Marko Vovchok to Yevhen Hutsalo and Hnat Khotkevych.
The series explores different expressions of love in Ukrainian culture and literature—the comic, the tragic, the ironic, and the grotesque. Its stories take place across several periods, including the nineteenth century, the First World War, and the 1990s, and span a wide geographical area—from the Carpathians to Kyiv and Mykolaiv.
In frames of Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin with cooperation with Takflix we show the third episode “Nature”.
Sofia strives to be independent of both her parents and men—but what is the price of such independence in the society of her time? The story is based on Nature by Olha Kobylianska, whose works repeatedly explored the figure of the emancipated woman.
DIGGER
von Alejandro G. Iñárritu
The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster he's unleashed destroys everything.
Ukranïan Film Festival Berlin
CAMOUFLAGE
von Mykyta Gibalenko
2021. When 22-year-old Vitaly leaves his mother Tetyana and his beloved sister Eugenia behind in Ukraine, he dreams of starting a new life in Munich, Germany. Struggling to find where he belongs in a foreign country, he eventually joins a student theater group. Everything changes with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Eugenia and Tetyana are forced to flee. Overnight, two harsh realities land on Vitaly’s doorstep: the global political situation and his own family conflicts.
Ukranïan Film Festival Berlin
SHORT FILM COMPETITION II – UNEXPECTED NATURES
A rock speaks, an invisible worker dances herself into view, a filmmaker confronts the people he has turned into cinema, and wildlife inhabits the toxic remains of Soviet industry. Moving between animation, documentary, essay, and performance, these films descend underground—into buried histories, hidden lives, and damaged landscapes. Between destruction and renewal, they reveal life reorganizing itself within the ruins.
HOMECOMING 19’ Roman Khimei, Yarema Malashchuk, Ukraine 2026
A few years after fleeing Ukraine following the Russian invasion, a boy returns home via a robotic dog, his mechanical avatar, which he controls from his room in Poland. Through this remote presence, he relives memories and reconnects with his past — a connection that now depends on a fragile video stream that could be cut off at any moment.
UNAVAILABLE 20’ Kyrylo Zemlyanyi, Ukraine, 2025
Serhii, a young man who fills his days with volunteer work, loses contact with his mother living in occupied territory. When his mother finally decides to evacuate, he learns that a humanitarian convoy from his hometown has been destroyed in a bombing raid.
APOCALYPSE YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW, AND THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW / APOKALYPSA VČERA, DNES, ZÍTRA A POZÍTŘÍ 20’ Anastasiia Bonadyha, Czech Republic, Ukraine, 2025
Through the story of Bohdan, an ordinary man living in Nikopol, the director explores why some people choose to stay in their homeland even when every day might be their last. Bohdan's quiet strength lies in his unwavering faith and ability to find meaning in life, no matter what challenges each new day brings. The film contemplates humanity, resilience, and belief in the face of an unfolding apocalypse.
MY GRANDMOTHER IS A SKYDIVER13’ Polina Piddubna, Ukraine 2025
Alfyia, a joyful young woman in 1960s Central Asia, is actively parachuting and studying to become a midwife, when she receives an extraordinary phone call from her granddaughter in 2022. She is worried about her grandmother's safety amid the invasion of Ukraine. In this intergenerational conversation across time and space, the granddaughter tries to restore and rethink family memory and her own ethnic identity, break the endless cycle of collective trauma and reflect on the meaning of human life.
KYIV CAKE 20’ Mykyta Lyskov Estonia, Ukraine 2025
The events of the movie unfold in modern Ukraine. A child is born into a poor family, the parents do everything possible to survive, but just when the crisis reaches its peak, a new danger flares up.
MIND YOUR STEP 5’ Alina Milkina, Netherlands 2026
A middle-age woman Tamara works as a metro and train station cleaner, having emigrated from her home in search of a better life. Working in a position seen by society as a low class job, Tamara exists in the invisibility of the railway space, performing her duties without any kind of interaction with those passing by. Her daily routine is interspersed with memories of a past life that was filled with emotions, people and, especially, dancing. One day, something changes in her and she dances in front of people in a subway car, taking off her mask of invisibility, disturbing people who finally notice her, breaking subjective social norms, and liberating herself.
ALTER EGO 10’ Sonia Leliukh, Germany, Ukraine 2025
Between minesweeper and family photos, the filmmaker faces the grief over the grandfather with radical honesty. A rough yet deeply tender work of remembrance.
I AM A ROCK 5’ Teta Tsybulnyk, Estonia/Ukraine 2026
Hiiumaa Island, Estonia. About 455 million years ago, a meteorite fell here, forming a crater 4 kilometers in diameter. This event is now represented by a landmark, a 1:100 scale model field of the Kärdla meteorite crater. In the middle of the field, there is a rock — or perhaps two rocks? One is an object of the speechless wilderness: a rock is a rock is a rock. The other is a signifier, an agent of the symbolic domain that participates in language and claims to be a meteorite. Playing with Magritte’s “The Treachery of Images” and a song by Simon & Garfunkel, the work delves into the paradoxical relationship between nature, language, and representation.
WHITE CLIFFS of VINNYTSIA 23’ Karolina Uskakovych, Ukraine 2026
Khimprom was once among the largest fertilizer producers in the Soviet Union. The chemical plant went bankrupt, leaving a toxic legacy in its wake. A phosphogypsum stack, known locally as the “White Mountain,” stands as the silent guardian to an obscured industrial past, while simultaneously offering refuge to an emerging ecosystem of thriving urban wildlife. The White Cliffs of Vinnytsia unravels hidden histories of agricultural chemical production and the unexpected natures that emerge from post-industrial landscapes.
Ukranïan Film Festival Berlin
TO THE VICTORY! / ЗА ПЕРЕМОГУ!
Ukraine, in the near future. The war has ended. A film director is out of work, out of luck, and out of touch with his family abroad. While his wife and daughter built a new life in Vienna, he stays behind—confused, restless, and convinced that things will get better. Eventually. Probably. Maybe.
Ukranïan Film Festival Berlin
WHAT THE SHORT?
A fresh mix of Ukrainian short films that find humour, absurdity, and tenderness in unexpected places. Unconventional, funny, and eccentric, these films are united by talent and true love of cinema.
Curated by Mariya Zoryk, Ivan Paniotov, Danyil Potopaiev, Jana Riemann
People of Dnipro
Mykyta Lyskov · Ukraine 2026 · 3 min
The video consists of photographs that I found in my relatives' house in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/z1ih8Rtozcg
HOME TV / ДІМ TV
Sophia Gera · Ukraine 2025 · 27 min
A host for HOME TV finds herself in the heart of life on Kyiv’s central streets. Asking locals, displaced people, and visitors of the capital “what is home?”, she comes across different views and circumstances. The collage of answers gradually blurs the question itself, leaving her face-to-face with her own search.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1044050166
Fish in My Stomach
Yehor Holovkov · Ukraine 2026 · 6 min
A man wakes up with fish inside his stomach that bite him. Seeking relief, he follows sketchy men into an underground fish-fighting bar, only to realize that embracing his inner creatures is the key to his freedom.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wLoDoPT
Off the Chest / Одпустило
Dara Sokolova · Ukraine 2025 · 13 min
Not about death, not about space, not about the search for logic. Two poor saps cross paths at the worst possible moment: full of honesty and zero dignity. They’ve got it Off the Chest, finally. The body feels lighter. The soul – still in question.
Inspired by Bohdan Zholdak’s “To Find Out the Logic”
Don't be naughty / Не бешкетуйте
Artem Kuznetsov · Ukraine 2026 · 5 min
After the owner leaves, a cat conflict begins to brew in the apartment, passions flare up, and it is unknown what this will lead to.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/4FNfpi6wWHU
12-Hour Shift / 12 годин зміна
Maryna Dovhanych · Ukraine 2025 · 2 min
An ordinary workday at a steel plant — a place where clouds are born and fiery rivers flow; a place where everything feels like a dream that has become a memory.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu0h4Smu4Rk
Easter Day / Пасхальний день
Mykola Zasieiev · France, Ukraine 2025 · 17 min
On Easter Sunday in Kyiv, two soldiers from the army recruitment office drive slowly through the streets, watching men who might be called to serve. Their search leads them to a young man who has stepped out only to buy food for his cat. He may try to avoid their gaze, but yet on this holy day, nothing is as simple as it first appears.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1125568309/cecd8cbac6
Schmes' / Шмєсь
Viktoriia Turetska · Germany 2026 · 7 min
A monster lady named Schmes' lives hidden in a basement, unbeknownst to the young couple in the house above her. Schmes' longs to be accepted as a member of the family and decides to enter their bedroom one night. But will they be able to accept a strange creature such as herself?
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/119554233
EMIL UND DIE DETEKTIVE
von David Dietl
Emil is spending his summer vacation with his grandmother in Berlin. But on the train there, he is robbed by the ruthless con artist Max Grundeis and a wild adventure begins! Together with his friends Pony, Gustav, Dienstag, Anh, and Jason, Emil sets off in pursuit and embarks on a fast-paced detective hunt across Berlin.
MOSCAS (2026)
von Fernando Eimbcke
Olga lives a strictly regulated life without attachments in a vast apartment block. When out of financial necessity she rents a room in her apartment to a man who also sneaks-in his nine-year-old son, an unlikely bond forms. Her carefully controlled world begins to shift, and their lives become intertwined against her will.
WHISTLEBLOWER
von Marc Bauder
A great-nephew of Lumumba exposes corruption in the Congo. US drone pilot reveals that innocent people are systematically being killed in attacks. Marc Bauder profiles people who expose widespread injustices—accompanied by Panama Papers authors Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, as well as whistleblower advocate Delphine Halgand-Mishra. S.B.
TRANSIT – STORIES OF TRAVELLERS AND MIGRANTS
What has changed + Fig Tree
What has changed
Short Film – 16 min., 2022, Hebrew with EN subtitles
Director: Salomon Chekol
Shai, an Ethiopian Jewish soldier in the Israeli army, returns home for Passover with a welfare food package for his family, only to discover that his father is keeping a secret. A quietly powerful short film about what it means to be of Ethiopian descent while navigating Jewish religious traditions in Israel in the 2000s.
Fig Tree
Feature Film – 93 min., 2018, Amharic with EN subtitles
Director: Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian
Addis Ababa, 1989. Mina is 16, Jewish, and about to leave Ethiopia for Israel, where her mother awaits their reunion. But this plan leaves behind the person she loves most: Eli, her Christian boyfriend, hiding in the woods to evade conscription into Mengistu Haile Mariam's army. A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Ethiopian Civil War.
Our October edition of “Transit” explores the history of Ethiopian Jews in Israel – a migration that remains little known both within and beyond Israel's borders. For generations, Ethiopian Jews dreamed of returning to Jerusalem. In the 1980s and 1990s, the State of Israel carried out complex operations to bring tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews to their ancestral homeland. Upon arrival, they were met with an exoticized image of the "lost tribes" of the Bible – and soon faced racism, discrimination, and the difficult realities of integration. Today, approximately 178,000 Jews of Ethiopian origin live in Israel.
Program
10:00 am – Doors open
11:00 am – "What has changed"
11:20 am – "Fig Tree"
ca. 1:30 pm – Conversation in the foyer
Included with your ticket: a bruschetta or a sfogliata.
Conversation:
Yael Reuveny and Evgenia Gostrer (curators)
with activist Tikva Sendeke and members of the "Fig Tree" production team.
Topic:
The unique history of the Ethiopian Jewish community and the challenges it continues to face
The Institut für Neue Soziale Plastik
The film series is presented in cooperation with the Institute for New Social Sculpture. The Institute for New Social Sculpture is an association of Jewish and antisemitism-critical directors, dramaturgs, writers, and artists. Since its founding in 2015, it has developed artistic projects from Jewish perspectives, focusing on contemporary Jewish life and history as well as memory culture and antisemitism. Another key area of its work is advising cultural institutions, independent groups, curators, and artists on issues related to antisemitism.
https://neue-soziale-plastik.de/en/
MOVIE NERDS MONTHLY SCREENING
THE SHORTS SHOW
The Shorts Show is the event the Berlin film scene was missing: a real cinema night, but not for Hollywood blockbusters; for SHORTS! Started in 2026, our curated monthly screenings have been enthusiastically received by the local community of filmmakers and moviegoers.
We welcome films of all genres and filmmakers of all levels of experience. A big name or budget won’t help you here; we simply choose the best. We have hosted award-winning directors, and directors who were with us watching their film on the silver screen for the very first time.
The Shorts Show has become more than just a film festival screening; one evening of the month, it’s where all Berlin film lovers come to digest the best the short form has to offer. Your film will be enjoyed and dissected frame by frame by people obsessed with the art of cinema.
GLAUBE
von Alauda Ruiz de Azúa
17-year-old Ainara is a student at a Catholic secondary school, and is about to take her final year exams and choose her future university course. To everyone’s surprise, this brilliant young girl announces to her family that she wants to take part in an induction period at a convent in order to embrace the religious life. Nobody was expecting this. While her father seems to be won over by his daughter’s aspirations, for Maite, Ainara’s aunt, this unexpected vocation is the manifestation of a deeper problem.
CINEVILLE PREVIEW
LA BOLA NEGRA
von Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
The intertwined lives of three men in three different eras, three lives intimately linked by sexuality and desire, pain, and legacy.
IL KINO 12. Geburtstag
SNEAK PREVIEW
To celebrate our 12th birthday we have special sneak preview for you! Trust us, it's well worth the gamble. Come and celebrate with us!
MINOTAURUS
von Andrey Zvyagintsev
When Gleb, a successful company director, finds himself under siege from mounting corporate pressures, an increasingly unstable world, and the discovery of his wife's affair, the collapse of his carefully ordered life accelerates toward violence.
DIE MÖLLNER BRIEFE
von Martina Priessner
Hunderte Briefe, in denen Nachbarn und Fremde den Betroffenen des rassistischen Brandanschlags Mölln ihre Solidarität aussprechen, wurden nach der Tat an die Stadt geschickt. Diese trostspendenden Briefe wurden jedoch nie den Familien der drei Opfer übergeben – stattdessen wurden sie sortiert, archiviert und schließlich vergessen. Durch einen Zufall erfahren die Überlebenden dreißig Jahre nach dem Anschlag von den Briefen. Martina Priessners präzise Kamera begleitet sie auf ihrer Suche nach Erklärungen. Die Möllner Briefe ist ein ergreifendes Plädoyer für eine lebendige Erinnerungskultur, dem es durch seinen visuellen Minimalismus gelingt, Opfer und Überlebende in den Mittelpunkt zu stellen.