By Meredith Brody
(March 26,2025)
What are my strategies for choosing what to see at a beloved SF film festival when much of what is offered are unknown titles? Sometimes all it takes for me to want to see a movie is a word or two.
While perusing the twelve film lineup of the upcoming Berlin and Beyond Film Festival, the 29th iteration presented by the Goethe-Institut, this happens several times.
John Cranko, the opening night film at the Roxie on March 27th at 5:30 pm (repeated at the Rialto Elmwood in Berkeley on March 31st at 7:45 pm) for example, because I’m interested in his choreography. I’m even more interested when I learn that it’s a fiction film about a specific time in his life, when he left the UK after being prosecuted for homosexuality and ended up in Stuttgart, where he revitalizes the Stuttgart Ballet.
Again, when I see there’s a film on offer called Riefenstahl, I’m in: I’ve seen every film that I could directed by or starring or about the actress/director who was Hitler’s darling. It’s a new documentary using previously-unseen documentation released from Riefenstahl’s estate with a surprising contemporary relevance with state of politics and “fake news.” At the Roxie on March 28th at 5:30.
Sometimes it’s the name of an actor that seduces: having enjoyed Sandra Hüller in Toni Erdmann, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, among others, I’m inclined to see her in Two to One, a period piece set in 1990 about an East German heist of West German money, playing at the Rialto Elmwood on March 1st at 3:45 pm (repeated at the Jarvis Conservatory in Napa on April 6 at 1 pm).
And then, of course, there’s subject matter that intrigues: The Traitor, a WW II spy drama about a deluded man whose fantasy about becoming a great singer leads him to sell Swiss secrets in Germany, playing at the Roxie on March 29th at 1:45 pm.
If you’ve missed the few opportunities the Bay Area offered to see the Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature The Seed of the Sacred Fig, here’s your chance. The intense familial drama, in which political unrest and repression in Iran impacts the trust and love among a judge, his wife, and their two teenage daughters, plays at the Roxie on March 29th at 5 pm.
How about that reverse-format trick that improves upon the flatscreen at home: watching a TV series on the big screen? On March 28th at the Roxie at 8 pm, you can see episodes 1–3 of Black Fruit, about young attractive gay Black best friends Lalo and Karla , followed by an in-depth conversation with series creator, lead, and executive producer Lamin Leroy Gibba.
In addition to Lamin Leroy Gibba other special guests include Michael Krummenacher, director/screenwriter of The Traitor, and the star of Winners, Sherine Ciara Merai.
Soleen Yusef’s Winners was selected for this year’s “Youth 4 German Cinema” award, the 12th year this educational program has invited middle and high school students to connect with German films and filmmakers. About the story of an eleven-year-old Kurdish girl whose family moves to Berlin where she doesn’t speak much German but is a good football player, the four young jurors offered this statement: “Winners passionately tells a timely, politically and societally important story. It is special for us as younger viewers – what happens in the film could just as well take place in one of our schoolyards. We can deeply relate with the characters on a cognitive and emotional level. Meanwhile, the uniqueness and realness of the characters’ personalities and struggles as well as the delicious twists and turns of the story makes it stay fresh. The already incredible story is conveyed through innovative and interesting techniques of cinematography and the precise and thoughtful use of film music.”
In addition to a schools only screening there will be a public showing of Winners on March 29 at the Vogue at 11:00 am.
For the complete schedule, details, and ticket info visit the Berlin & Beyond website.
View and download the complete Program Book here.
POSTERS AND TRAILERS BELOW for the films mentioned above. More trailers for other films in “Berlin & Beyond” here.
Meredith Brody, a graduate of both the Paris Cordon Bleu cooking school and USC film school, has been the restaurant critic for, among others, the Village Voice, LA Weekly, and SF Weekly, and has written for countless film magazines and websites including Cahiers du Cinema, Film Comment, and Indiewire. Her writings on books, theater, television, and travel have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Interview. She also contributes to EatDrinkFilms including her“Meals with Meredith,” where she talks about food and film with filmmakers at restaurants in northern California, writes about vintage cocktails and where she eats during film festivals at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. A selection of her EDF pieces are found here.
One could describe Meredith as “hooked on cinema” as she attends four-five films a day at many bay area and international festivals each year. Somebody has to do it. Read about her journey back to festivals after two years in pandemic mode.
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