In her sophomore film Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel paints a vivid portrait of an eccentric family and their profusion of uncertain desires, ambiguous intentions and an overarching need for change. Here, reaching adulthood does not mark the end of the process of growing up, but rather its messy and equally painful and fascinating continuation.

A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra follows the 15-year-old titular character on a seemingly ordinary day. Until, for the first time in a long while, Jo feels a genuine connection with another person: her classmate Phaedra. Will today turn out to be different after all? If only Jo could read the life line on her palm or remember the symbols from her dream... Greek filmmaker Jacqueline Lentzou, internationally celebrated for poetic, tender cinema such as Moon, 66 Questions (FFG2021), imbues her loving teenage portrait with melancholy and mystery. Lentzou invites the viewer to join her in searching for a light that may never go out: “All we need to do is have our heart open to feel it.”

The destructive nature of dementia has been a source of inspiration for many a filmmaker, but perhaps never quite as unvarnished, carnal and discomforting as in Lance Hammer’s Queen At Sea. Eighteen years after his lauded debut Ballast, the independent director returns with a gut-wrenching drama that questions our understanding of intimacy and sexuality, agency and care. In it, a family’s life is upended by the rapidly declining health of Leslie, a dementia-stricken artist. She’s tended to by both her husband and daughter, but the two caregivers butt heads over Leslie’s best interests. This deeply touching drama was awarded with the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the Berlinale.

“Families can be complicated,” is heard at the wedding party in Dao. The latest film by Alain Gomis, Silver Bear winner for Félicité (2017) and a Berlinale regular, intertwines a wedding in France with a memorial ceremony in Guinea-Bissau within the same Afro-French family. At the heart of it all is a woman named Gloria, as both a mother and a daughter. More than ever, the French-Senegalese director drew from his personal experiences, before – primarily through improvisation – allowing his ensemble to explore for themselves the love and sorrow united in rituals. Gomis blends experienced actors with non-professional performers and fiction with a (‘behind the scenes’) documentary approach.

The 1986 World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and England was far more than a football match. Maradona’s infamous “Hand of God” goal made history, but the game also carried the weight of the Falklands War. The Match revisits the fierce rivalry, political tensions and clashes that surrounded the game.

In Moscas, Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke tells the story of Olga, who rents out a room to a father and his nine-year-old son Christian while the father spends time with his hospitalised wife. As Olga and Christian grow closer, the film explores connection, loss and vulnerability through quiet observation, subtle humor and retro video games.

After acclaimed films such as Evil Does Not Exist, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi moves his camera to France for the first time. Virginie Efira plays a care home director whose understanding of dignity is transformed by meeting a seriously ill Japanese playwright. Through patient observation, silences and conversations, Hamaguchi explores chance, fate and life-changing encounters.

In 1858, Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House as governess to two precocious children. Her polished manners hide a gruesome appetite and a trail of dead bodies. Maika Monroe plays her with wicked delight, while the movie mixes gore, black comedy and gothic unease. The result is a playful horror flick where the Victorian facade cracks before us.

Born from the cataclysmic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, this immersive journey follows Kesuma, a castaway struggling to survive on a remote island. As isolation and nature reshape his world, reality gives way to something dreamlike and elemental. Rich in sound and atmosphere, the film becomes a sensory meditation on humanity’s fragile place within the natural world.

Resisting all types of easy categorisation, Syrian director Rand Abou Fakher’s full length feature debut Why Do I See You In Everything? is a disorienting hybrid documentary that contrasts violence with tenderness, and displacement with belonging. A poetic plaint that proves home truly is where the heart is, by focusing on the shared history of two lifelong friends.