Berlin’s 14 Films Festival is Back Again with ‘La Chimera’, ‘Green Border’
by Alex Billington
December 3, 2023
Source: 14 Films
Berlin’s best film festival is underway once again. They’ve got the best films you’ll watch all year, venues in great locations in the city, and affordable tickets. The 14 Films Around the World Festival has kicked off in Germany’s capitol city. The selection this year features 23 of the year’s best festival films from, ahem, around the world, screening in Berlin for everyone to enjoy – this fest meant for the public, for anyone to come and discover great cinema. Tickets are only 11€ each (more info here), playing at two big and warm and cozy movie theaters, with a few Q&As and other special events during the next week. Last year I wrote a passionate article about how much I adore this festival, and how glad I am they exist in this city I now call home. Having been to all of the major festivals this year, most of this line-up features films on my Top 10 of 2023 – including Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, which is my #1 and their Opening Night feature in 2023.
If you live in Berlin or you’re in the area from December 1st until December 9th, I highly recommend going to catch some films. The superb 2023 line-up includes: Italy’s La Chimera (my 9.9/10 review – premiered at Cannes), along with Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border (premiered at Venice), Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents (my 9/10 review – premiered at Cannes), Alexandria Bombach’s doc about the Indigo Girls – It’s Only Life After All, Baloji’s acclaimed Congolese film Omen (view the trailer – premiered at Cannes), Kaouther Ben Hania’s award-winning doc film Four Daughters (view the trailer – premiered at Cannes), Marija Kavtaradze’s romance Slow (premiered at Sundance), Elene Naveriani’s Georgian film Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (premiered at Cannes), Amanda Nell Eu’s genre film Tiger Stripes (premiered at Cannes), the acclaimed Thai film Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell (premiered at Cannes), Kitty Green’s Australian thriller The Royal Hotel, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s new film Evil Does Not Exist (premiered at Venice), Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s profoundly moving film About Dry Grasses (my 8.5/10 review – premiered at Cannes), Andrew Haigh’s beloved new film All Of Us Strangers (premiered at Telluride), and Savanah Leaf’s debut Earth Mama (premiered at Sundance). All of these are worth seeing – yep, every single one.
For more info on screenings, tickets, and more – visit their official website at 14films.de or follow them on IG @aroundtheworldin14films or on Facebook. I’m happy to bring attention to this charming little festival in Berlin because it really is one of the best places to watch all of these exceptional films. I can’t believe this line-up! Every film is a knock out! If I was running this festival, this is pretty much the exact same set of films I’d program as well. Last year they also showed one of my all-time favorites – The Eight Mountains. They are also the first festival to screen Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron in Germany, but this event already took place on Saturday and they screened it only with German subtitles, which I don’t agree with (since it’s an international festival!). All other films are shown with English subtitles in the original format. Anyone can go! I will be catching a few films later this week, just for my own enjoyment. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to view some of the best new movies in 2023 with enthusiastic cinephile audiences.