In Punku (the Quechua word for ‘gateway’), J.D. Fernández Molero unnervingly explores being young in contemporary Peru, with its jumble of late-stage capitalism, traditional culture, and strongly defined gender roles. Here, indigenous teenagers broadcast their lives on TikTok and homeopathic potions are as trusted as modern medicine. Tinged with autobiographical touches, Punku is the story of unlikely friendship between Iván and Meshia, who find commonality as outsiders. 

Gaps and omissions, counter-narratives and revisions: many of the film works selected for the 21st Berlinale Forum Expanded focus on the ways in which individuals and states write their histories.

The 56th Forum offers opportunities to explore the cinema status quo in all its many facets and shows films by people who take their work and its impact seriously: the way it affects our coexistence, our battles, our reconciliations, our history and stories.

In its third year, the Forum Special programme focuses on closeness and neighbourhood, examining the “condition féminine” – and female directors East and West, now and back in the day.

On January 1st, 2026,  Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art will become the Arsenal Filminstitut. With this new name, the institution reinforces its future profile and is to be grasped to an even greater extent as a central location for film education, research and a multi-faceted practice that embraces curatorial, artistic and experimental forms of contemporary film culture and how these are communicated.  

How do fatally ill patients face death? And how can you help them fill their remaining time with as much quality of life as possible? In his four-hour institutional observation, Philipp Döring explores these questions by following everyday routines at the palliative care unit at the Franziskus Hospital in Berlin. The film will be available for rental starting November 17, before which it is reserved for festival screening.

From the 1970s to the early 2000s the John M. Olin Foundation donated millions to pushing a conservative agenda in the USA . As a by-product or direct effort, the Olin Corporation and other conservative think tanks have had a deep and unsettling impact on American politics, family values, and women’s health. Working again the field of the 16mm New Left essay film, Lee Anne Schmitt connects an array of topics, books, and objects to reflect on the rise of the new conservative movement and the effects of dark money on American politics and culture.

Following a construction phase of more than a year, the Arsenal cinema will now open in the Westhalle of silent green in April 2026.

The Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin and the Kinothek Asta Nielsen in Frankfurt have received the estate of filmmaker, feminist, and activist Tatjana Turanskyj (1966–2021) through a donation from her husband and collaborator Jan Ahlrichs. Tatjana Turanskyj had close ties to both institutions during her lifetime.