Film Festivals in 2026: Battlegrounds of a Divided World/Contact Zones of a New World Order

The 76th Berlin IFF: Observations from afar

I was not at Berlinale this year. Looking at the list of awards and the reports of the award ceremony, however, has been interesting. I also read various – often contrasting – reactions and festival snippets that friends have been sharing. And of course, I followed the festival coverage.¹ Based on this, I want to share some observations from afar. 

A big festival is many things to many people, so there are as many festival experiences as there are attendees. I did notice from the posts of various friends that many of them carved out their own happy niche and followed pathways that never came to any mainstream attention but were nonetheless viable and satisfactory for those involved. Thus, in general, the business of the festival did happen. 

The big controversy was the disputed notion of Berlinale’s political engagement. This topic has been the subject of many pages in Wolfgang Jacobsen’s massive history of the festival (1951-2000), and I see things have not changed much. Today, political divisions still run deep, maybe even deeper. In the past they were mainly behind the scenes, now they play out live on stage. 

It all rolled out from a statement made by jury president Wim Wenders, who was challenged at a press conference. Did he think the German government’s support for Israel impacted the film event’s position on Gaza? In response, Wenders said: “We have to stay out of politics, because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. But we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.”

76th BERLINALE: Jury President Wim Wenders. 12 February 2026. Source: screen grab from media reports.

The statement triggered a blistering response on social media. Film and politics are not mutually exclusive, people were saying. On the contrary. All film is political. Wenders is talking rubbish. Godard must be turning in his grave!

Many felt they needed to protest Wenders’ view with actions, not just words. Indian author Arundhati Roy, a vocal advocate of Gaza, cancelled her planned Berlinale participation. The families of two restored Egyptian classics withdrew the films. A letter of some hundred prominent film personalities urged the organisers to take a clear stance on the war in Gaza. Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania, director of Oscar-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab, refused to receive a ‘peace’ award, saying that there is no peace without accountability. Debates persisted throughout the festival, overshadowing the organisers’ intentions.

Kaouther Ben Hania, director of The Voice of Hind Rajab, speaking at the Cinema for Peace Gala, Hotel Adlon, Berlin. February 2026. Source: screen grab from media reports.

Seemingly, Wim Wenders – a man who has been associated with political filmmakers like Fassbinder and Herzog – suffered a huge reputational slump. The view that filmmakers ought to stay out of politics made him the big loser of this year’s edition. I wondered, however, if the apolitical stance that transpired only now had not always been there? Somebody made a perceptive comment: Wenders, it went, had chaired the festival jury at Cannes in 1989. It had been him who steered the win away from Spike Lee’s political Do the Right Thing and toward Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape.

To calm things down, Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle issued a letter which tried to reassert her reign at a moment when the situation was getting out of hand.² The authoritative-looking photo that came with it was supposed to help. She tried to regulate what filmmakers can and cannot be expected to do at the festival: they are there to talk films, not to ponder over international conflict. The letter claimed that those who cared for Gaza at the festival were spreading misinformation or were acting anonymously. This statement sounded particularly bizarre. What was anonymous about Arundhati Roy, Kaouther Ben Hania, the 104 letter signatories, the families of Egyptian filmmakers, as well as prize-winners Abdallah Alkhatib and Marie-Rose Osta who spoke at the closing ceremony? People did not hide. Alkhatib even said he mainly came to be able to personally pronounce the sentence ‘Palestine will be free’ on stage. Politics was not thrown out. It could not be. The letter seemed to be ignored. 

Issues related to Gaza received abundant coverage, but the Israeli presence at the festival was no less consequential. A ‘German-Israeli Future Narrative Fund’ was inaugurated.³  Whilst Ben Hania refused the conciliatory award of the peace event that was only tangentially affiliated to the festival, IDF’s retired General Noam Tibon, star of Canadian TIFF-winner The Road Between Us, accepted with gratitude. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in attendance. 

As soon as the festival was over, German politicians came on the offensive. They were not happy with the fact pro-Gaza voices had attracted attention at Berlinale. On 25 February, German tabloid Der Bild rushed in with accusations that Tuttle was, in fact, a covert terror supporter. She had posed in a ‘propaganda’ photo with Palestinian filmmakers wearing Keffiyehs and displaying the PLO flag. Der Bild also broke the news that Tuttle’s future as Berlinale director is at stake. A meeting to finalise her removal was scheduled and her firing was imminent.⁴ 

76th BERLINALE: Director Tricia Tuttle. 12 February 2026. Source: screen grab from media reports.

Now, a festival director usually takes photos with the teams of each participating film. Tricia Tuttle did. The photo that Der Bild disseminated was one out of hundreds taken in the context of Berlinale. It shows the director with a group of people who are there to present their work. They are Palestinian filmmakers from the diaspora, many wear a Keffiyehs, and the Palestinian flag is displayed: none of which is a crime. What Bild claimed the photo to represent was Tuttle posing with a group of terrorists; it seemed that the German culture minister also believed that.

An outpour of letters in support of Tuttle followed, speaking of her integrity and artistic vision: from the 500-strong staff of Berlinale, from the European Film Academy, from Israeli filmmakers, and so on. The film community feared that, whilst a brilliant manager, Tuttle may decide to throw in the towel. Tuttle had made Berlinale a welcoming and safe space, they thought, fully in compliance with Germany’s free speech law. If she were to be replaced, the Germans would have it hard finding someone of her calibre to take the poisoned chalice. ‘Who wants to be the scapegoat for Germany’s involvement in Gaza?’ […] who would want to put themselves through this?,’ Screen International’s Wendy Mitchell reasoned. 

The next day, Tuttle was summoned by the culture minister Weimer for an intense meeting, not meant to assess Berlinale’s multi-focal achievements but one that focused on the episodes that the minister did not approve of. Tuttle later emerged. She had listened to the music and she had not resigned.⁵ She had agreed, however, to accept a new code of conduct which would include an ‘antisemitic taboo,’ as well as a newly appointed supervisory Board.⁶ The full details on the code or the supervisors are not available for the time being.

Berlinale, as of 1951: A Look Back in History

There is no way for festivals to avoid politics. In fact, most histories of film festivals largely discuss political controversies that happen year in and year out. A range of such studies have appeared– including Latil on Cannes (2005), Pisu on international festivals (2017), Moine on Leipzig (2018), Lee on Asian festivals (2020), Salazkina on the Tashkent festival (2023), and not least Gian Piero Brunetta’s crown achievement, the 1100-page long history of the Venice Mostra (2022, Iordanova, 2023). 

Created by the American administration in postwar Berlin in 1951, Berlinale, specifically, was conceived as political affair. Positioned at the forefront of the Cold War in Europe’s divided city, its original raison d’être was politics. It was perhaps the most political festival of them all. 

At past editions of Berlinale, I have heard director Dieter Kosslick repeatedly claim that the main thing for his festival is politics and that he would never shun away from political cinema. At the end of the day, after stepping down after nearly two decades at the helm, he published a memoir in which he almost never touched on political cinema. His main contribution – in his self-assessment – was to have created the ‘culinary cinema’ sidebar (Kosslick, 2021). Was it just him? Or were the times changing?

At Berlinale’s first edition in 1951, the Swiss Four in a Jeep (Die Vier im Jeep,1951, Leopold Lindtberg), a provocative film that revealed tensions running across post-WWII Europe, won the inaugural Golden Bear after stirring a controversy at Cannes (Cowie 2010). Many more political storms followed. One was the showing of Alain Resnais Holocaust classic Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard, 1956) which Cannes had removed on request by the West German embassy. Another one concerned the withdrawal of Frank Beyer’s Turning Point (Der Aufenthalt, 1982) due to objections from Poland. The participation of the Soviets – as of 1974 – was premised on carefully agreeing touchy aspects of WWII memory. Other controversies related to issues of violence and accountability. One concerned the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, another one – the Chinese occupation of Tibet.⁷ 

As Berlinale is an A-Category FIAPF accredited festival, it must obey the clause stating that ‘festivals must assist international understanding.’ Predictably, the clause has been raised to resolve situations of dissenting opinions. Its most notorious use occurred in 1970, when the entire Berlinale competition was annulled by the jury president, American director George Stevens. The jury had been split and voted 7:2 in favour of Michael Verhoeven’s German anti-war film o.k., a critical reconstruction of American violence in Vietnam.⁸ Stevens was not happy and sought to invalidate the vote. The entire competition was declared invalid; no awards were given that year. It is unacceptable for a German film to seek accountability for American violence, Stevens reasoned. First the Germans must atone for their own horrific crimes. 

And so, Germans have been atoning since. Coming to a controversy as recent as 2024, a year when the 74th Berlinale was rocked by protests and statements in support of Gaza and Palestine. Many of the award recipients made speeches on stage during the closing ceremony, protesting Israel’s indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza. The documentary No Other Land – filmed by a team of Israeli and Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories on the West Bank and viscerally showing the systematic land grab and settler violence that occurs under the protection of the Israeli Army – won both the audience award for Best documentary as well as the Best Documentary award.⁹ 

Some German politicians – particularly Berlin mayor Kay Wegner and Minister of state for culture Claudia Roth – were outraged. They felt compelled to express opinion on the film by declaring it “antisemitic” and criticise the festival’s leadership. There was no one to reprimand, though, as directors Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek were already on the way out. The new director, Tricia Tuttle, had been already appointed but was to step in two months later; she was to enter the scene soon thereafter and stary by picking up the pieces of the controversy. Even before her first festival, Tricia Tuttle faced pressure from politicians; she admitted that “a perception that Germany had been overzealous in its policing of speech about the Middle East conflict” was affecting festival planning.¹⁰ A quarter into the 21st century, it had come to a situation when Berlinale’s director was tightly controlled by eager politicians. 

This is all particularly striking. Not only is Berlinale the most political festival. It is also historically known as the festival that has continuously maintained a lax attitude to the politics of its first long serving director, Alfred Bauer (1911-1986). 

Bauer had run the festival for 25 years, from inception in 1951 when he was appointed by Berlin’s American administration, up to 1976 when he honourably retired. He was believed to have shown ‘that he could cater to both sides of the political spectrum’ (Cowie: 20). He had made the festival synonymous with ‘stability and continuity.’ When he passed, in 1986, a special prize was established in his name. Considered one of the most prestigious European film accolades, the ‘Alfred Bauer Prize’ was being awarded over two decades (1987-2019). Recipients include Léos Carax, Tsai Ming-liang, Baz Luhrmann, Lucrecia Martel, Zhang Yimou, Park Chan-wook, Andrzej Wajda, Miguel Gomes, Alain Resnais, Lav Diaz, Agnieszka Holland, and other illustrious filmmakers. 

This all changed in 2020 – some 45 years after his retirement and 35 years after his passing – when nasty revelations were made about Bauer. It now became publicly known that prior and during WWII he had been an active member of the Nazi party and of the SA. Not only that: he had served as a high-ranking propagandist in Goebbels’ culture ministry. How could he have concealed all that?¹¹ In fact, Bauer’s Nazi past had not really been a deeply hidden secret. His Nazi affiliation had been known to the Americans but deemed irrelevant at the time of his appointment. Later, the matter had been periodically popping up in the writing of various historians.¹² These voices had all been ignored until 2020, when they were finally given credibility and a scandal broke out. To sooth the disgrace, Berlinale hastily commissioned a ‘historical study’ which is available on the festival’s website, and which is largely believed in specialist circles to be a PR whitewashing.¹³ As it happened during COVID, the controversy never gained the exposure one would expect for a gaffe of such proportions. It remains little known. What would have been the most explosive bombshell in Berlinale’s political history never caused much uproar. 

In the context of this discussion, it seems ironical that Berlinale’s overseers lived perfectly happily with former Nazi Alfred Bauer as director for 25 years. But a festival director who allows a genocide to be called out has got no place here?

Conclusions

We live in a divided world. The cracks along division lines are getting deeper. Berlinale is not the only festival affected by political control. Already in 2018 there was an incident at the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan – the preeminent forum for Chinese-language cinema – which led to political backlash and ruined the event.¹⁴ 

At the 1973 Oskars, when Native American Sacheen Littlefeather climbed on stage, on instruction from Marlon Brando, to decline his Academy Award, there was significant backlash. Back then one could not speak of the destruction of Native Americans. There was backfire in the aftermath of Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar acceptance speech for The Zone of Interest in 2024, too.¹⁵ This time around the director of a Holocaust-themed film was not supposed to have spoken of the destruction of Palestinians. 

The fear of repercussions reverberates wide and large. Even as far as North Africa where in December 2025 the organisers of the 60 year-old Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia prevented jury members from coming on stage out of fear they may use the forum to make unwanted pronouncements.¹⁶ And in 2026, IndieWire reported of difficulties in commissioning and distributing political documentaries: ‘the pipeline is breaking down,’ they said.¹⁷ 

Festivals in the West are often charged that they display double standards regarding Ukraine and Gaza. On consideration, this is correct in only some respects. Film festivals have made efforts to include Ukraine and Palestine-themed films without excluding those that presented the Israeli viewpoint. Whilst no current Russian cinema is shown at most Western festivals, Israeli films and festivals are not boycotted.¹⁸ Cannes, for example, made pro-active efforts to host the world premiere of Mariupolis 2 (2022) by the late Mantas Kvedaravičius who was killed by Russian forces in Ukraine,¹⁹ and of Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (2025), featuring the late Fatima Hassouna who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.²⁰ Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025) had its world premiere at Venice IFF, Annemarie Jacir Palestine 36 (2025) – at the Toronto IFF. Guy Nattiv’s Golda (2023)²¹ and Tatami (2023) opened at Berlinale and Venice IFF respectively. Nadav Lapid’s Yes! and Or Sinai’s Mama were at Cannes in 2025. Barry Avrich’s The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue (2025), reflecting on the 7 October attacks, received People’s Choice award for documentary at the Toronto IFF in September 2025 as well as the Dove for Justice of the Year at the Cinema for Peace gala in Berlin on 16 February 2026. Many more examples can be given.

73rd BERLINALE: Director Guy Nattiv, stars Helen Mirren and Lior Ashkenazi at the premiere of Golda, 20 February 2023. Source: screen grab from media reports.

Where I see double standards, though, is in the way festival organisers are treated. I am not aware of anyone having come under scrutiny for inviting and celebrating Ukrainian films, whilst there are multiple examples where festival programmers have been harassed for programming choices and especially for allowing free speech on stage.²² Some high profile examples include Orwa Nyrabia who stepped down after six celebrated years as IDFA director, and the demands made of Toronto’s long-standing director Cameron Bailey. The political pestering of Tricia Tuttle is just the most recent instalment in a campaign of global vigilantism. 

73rd BERLNALE. President Zelenski speaking at the opening gala. 16 February 2023. Source: screen grab from media reports.

No controversies to suppress protest expressions are registered when Ukrainians speak of their struggle,²³ whereas Palestinians are often regarded with suspicion, especially as many of them have been criminalised as of young age.²⁴ Those speaking from stage are declared ‘terrorists’ and those who have let them on stage are treated as enablers. Whilst filmmakers appeal for peace and accountability, it does not appear that anyone is in a position to ensure that it happens, for now.²⁵ 

The battle over narratives is not new. Obstructions have been taking place for many decades. The proliferation of incidents, however, is leaving deep marks on the world of festivals today. As a result, we no longer have an uninterrupted festival circuit. Rather, separate spheres that grow in isolation from one another, reflecting political division lines. It is no longer possible to stay apolitical. One must take sides – and in the world of film this happens by choosing between festivals. 

In my academic field of film studies, the oldest professional organisation recently split in two irreconcilable camps, over Palestine. ²⁶ As of 2024 there have been tensions at the Eurovision Song Contest over Israeli participation and alleged votes manipulation; in 2026 these escalated to a boycott by five European members (Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain). It is not inconceivable that organisations that work in film may come to rethink their stance or face a similar crisis. Members of the European Film Academy, for example, which is headquartered in Berlin, may question the rationale of staying based in a country that is actively engaged censoring its flagship festival. EFA’s commitment to hold the European Film Awards ceremony in Berlin on alternate years may need to be revisited as well.

The culture minister of Germany may have given Tricia Tuttle her gagging orders at the end of February 2026, and I suppose she will find a way to obey. The world, however, has not shown much sign of improvement since. The spiral of violence accelerates.

Around the time Tuttle was reconfirmed in her role, Israel and the USA engaged in massive bombings of Iran – to which Iran retaliated by shelling many of its neighbours and Israel. One of the latest bombings of Teheran damaged the home of Abbas Kiarostami. The Israeli assault on Lebanon forced more than a million people out of their homes. The cinema in the ancient coastal city of Tyre, a World Heritage site, was turned into a shelter for refugees. One of the displaced is Iraqi émigré director Abbas Fahdel, winner of Best Director at Locarno for Tales of the Wounded Land (2025), a personal chronicle of his toddler daughter growing up on the background of shelling thunder in South Lebanon. Will he and his family ever be able to return?

What will the next 11 months – before the next Berlinale is scheduled to take place – bring? In one scenario, film festivals will succumb and seek to reimagine themselves as contact zones for the new world order. In another, they may persevere as battlegrounds of a divided world. 

The Lebanese National Theatre cinema in Tyre, site of the Tyre International Short Film Festival, has been turned into shelter for refugees. April 2026. Source: screen grab from media reports.

Bibliography:

• Becker, Wolfgang. Film and Power: Organizational Principles and Structures of Nazi Film Propaganda. Spiess, 1973.
• Blumenberg, Hans. Life Goes On: The Last Film of the Third Reich. Rowohlt, 1993. 
• Brunetta, Gian Piero. La Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia, 1932-2022, La Biennale di Venezia/Marsilio, 2022. 
• Cowie, Peter. The Berlinale. The Festival. Introduction by Michel Ciment. Internationale Filmfestspiele and Bertz Fisher Verlag, 2010. 
• Dvořáková, Tereza and Ivan Klimeš. Prag-Film AG 1941–1945 Between Protectorate and Reich Cinematography. edition text + kritik, 2008.
• Iordanova, Dina. ‘A monumental chronicle of ‘The Mother of All Film Festivals’, Necsus, December 2023. Available: https://necsus-ejms.org/a-monumental-chronicle-of-the-mother-of-all-film-festivals/
• Iordanova, Dina. ‘Cold War and Film Festivals in the Aftermath of 1968,’ In Pisu, Stefano, Francesco Pitassio and Maurizio Zinni (eds) Rethinking the Cinematic Cold War: The Struggle for Hearts and Minds Goes Global. Berghahn books, 2025: 101-118. 
• Jacobsen, Wolfgang, 50 Years Berlinale: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin. Filmmuseum Berlin-Deutsche Kinematek and Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Bauermann GmbH Belrin, 2000. 
• Jungen, Chistian. Moritz de Hadeln – Mister Filmfestival. Rüffer & Rub, 2018. 
• Kosslick, Dieter, Immer auf dem Teppich bleiben: Von magischen Momenten und der Zukunft des Kinos. Hoffmann und Campe, 2021.
• Lee, Sangjoon. Cinema and the Cultural Cold War, Cornell University Press, 2020. 
• Loredana Latil. Le Festival de Cannes sur la scène internationale, Nouveau Monde, 2005. 
• Moeller, Felix. The Film Minister: Goebbels and Film in the Third Reich. Henschel, 1998.
• Moine, Caroline. Screened Encounters: The Leipzig Documentary Film Festival 1955 – 1990. Berghahn Books, 2018.
• Pisu, Stefano. Il XX secolo sul red carpet. Politicam economia e cultura nei festival internazionali del cinema (1932-1976), Franco Angeli, 2017. 
• Salazkina, Masha. World Socialist Cinema Alliances, Affinities, and Solidarities in the Global Cold War. University of California Press, 2023.

Gaza survivors attend a screening of The Voice of Hind Rajab at the first Gaza International Festival for Women’s Cinema (GIFWC). October 2025. Source: screen grab from media reports.

Endnotes