At Berlinale 2025 the honorary Golden Bear for lifelong achievements goes to Tilda Swinton at the opening night on February 13th. She is world-wide respected as a outstanding actress.
She is for a long-time member of the Berlinale Family. As early as 1986 she paid her visit at Berlinale in West Berlin as the city was still divided by a wall. In 2009 she was the president of the jury of Berlinale. Altogether she acted in 26 movies that were played in the Berlinale Festival Programmes! Famous movies like ‘Carravagio’ and ‘The Beach’.
In her career she won an Oscar for a side-role in the thriller ‘Michael Clinton’! I was impressed by the natural and warm personality of Tilda Swinton as I had the opportunity to meet her in Berlin and internationally.
Berlinale has a new director Tricia Tuttle from the English-speaking world. She comes from London. She was the deputy head of the London Film Festival BFI for some years. She got a masters degree in film studies from the British film institute BFI. As a young girl she played the guitar in musicals. In her press conference to introduce 2025 a prominent German newspaper said she was relaxed and full of compliments for Berlin and Berlinale.
Berlinale 2025 will present 240 films from 74 countries. Among them will be 50 German films which is almost one third of the total films. T
here will be nineteen films in the main competition. The festival will start on 13th February with many prominent stars from all over the world. In the competition of the main movies Richard Linklater will present his film ‘Blue Moon’ with Margaret Quallay, Andrew Scott and his great star Ethan Hanke.
The famous actress Jassica Chastain will be seen in ‘Dream’. Rose Byrne and the US rapper ASAP Rocky will be seen in ‘If I had legs I‘d kick you’.
Berlinale 2025 finishes the day before the general elections in Germany and when a journalist from a prominent newspaper asked the director at the press conference how the festival will react to it, the director Tricia Tuttle answered straight forward: ‘We have not planned anything like that, but we encourage people to go and vote. We also encourage them to go to the cinema and watch the movies we are presenting for them’.
