South American Films at the 2026 Berlinale
On Confinement, Trauma, and Departure

More than 20 South American films are screening at the 2026 Berlinale. They explore themes ranging from familial constraints and racism to state control under military dictatorships — with physical or moral violence recurring throughout.

By Camila Gonzatto

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz returns to the Berlinale competition, this time with Rosebush Pruning, a co‑production between Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The cast features prominent names such as Pamela Anderson, Tracy Letts, Callum Turner, and other well‑known actors. The screenplay, written by Greek screenwriter Efthimis Filippou, is a reinterpretation of Fists in the Pocket (Marco Bellocchio, 1965) and is set in a paradisiacal landscape in Spain. The film portrays a wealthy, secluded family consisting of a blind father and four children who do nothing aside from indulging in fashion.

The family exhibits partially incestuous relationships and lives in a state of self‑absorbed apathy until the eldest brother decides to leave the house. The unease this triggers leads to a tragic chain of events. At the press conference, actor Tracy Letts, who plays the authoritarian, perverse father, said: “One of the things the film points to is that extreme disparities of wealth lead to bad behavior — and very likely give rise to fascism.”

Confronted with life in a settlement in northern Argentina, the protagonist of El tren fluvial, directed by Lorenzo Ferro and Lucas A. Vignale, also attempts, in a way, to escape familial oppression. Milo, a nine‑year‑old boy, is strictly raised, expected to help with household chores, and pushed by his father to become a Malambo dancer. When he arrives alone in Buenos Aires, Milo encounters an almost ghostly reality. According to the directors, the protagonist is “a child who grows through something that becomes unsettled inside him. Courage and fear coexist within him, as do the urge to leave and the secret desire to stay.” El tren fluvial screens in the Perspectives section.

Processes of Mourning

Also in this section is Nosso segredo, directed by Brazilian filmmaker Grace Passô. The film, cast almost entirely with Black actors, portrays a family mourning the death of the father. Set within the family home, it addresses essential themes such as heritage, relationships across lines of skin color, and racism. Se eu fosse vivo…vivia, directed and written by André Novais Oliveira, also tells an intimate story rooted in grief. It follows an elderly couple played by writer Conceição Evaristo and Norberto Novais Oliveira, the director’s father. “Conceição Evaristo’s participation is remarkable. She accepted the challenge of staging herself, was curious about the filmmaking process, and contributed many ideas from her literary work,” the director said after the Berlin screening.

Racism and Prejudice

Racism also appears as a central topic in Quatro meninas by Karen Suzane, shown in the Generation 14plus section. The film tells the story of four young girls working as servants for four boarding‑school students in rural Brazil. When the enslaved girls decide to flee, their sinhás uncover the plan and join them. Together, the eight girls — each shaped by different perspectives and stories of oppression — pursue freedom and the realization of dreams made impossible by a patriarchal, hierarchical society. Through an intersectional lens, Feito Pipa explores prejudice and centers on a queer 12‑year‑old boy living in the interior of Ceará. The protagonist Gugu, Black and poor, dreams of becoming a football player. He lives relatively freely with his grandmother after his mother — an activist opposing the construction of a hydroelectric plant — was murdered. When his grandmother falls ill, he must move in with his father (Lázaro Ramos), who is conservative and rejects his son’s queer identity. Bullied at school and without refuge, Gugu must find a way forward for himself and his grandmother. Feito Pipa, a tender, subtle, and precisely crafted film by Allan Deberton, won the Crystal Bear for Best Film in the Generation KPlus section.

Erasure of Indigenous Peoples

The Argentinian documentary Bosque arriba en la montaña by Sofía Bordenave, screening in the Forum section, follows the trial concerning the role of agents of the Albatros special forces unit of the Argentine security services in the 2017 killing of young Mapuche Rafael Nahuel. Courtroom scenes are interwoven with a journey through Mapuche territory in Argentina. Using archival footage, maps, and testimonies, the film recounts centuries of violence and displacement endured by the Mapuche — while also portraying, through documentary form, the resistance and cultural reclamation undertaken by youth in the Bariloche region. The Brazilian film Floresta do fim do mundo in Forum Expanded, by contrast, is fiction — a collaboration between director Felipe Bragança and artist Denilson Baniwa, based on one of Baniwa’s dreams. “The dream was about a person who foresaw death, the end and the rebirth of life, and who becomes lost in this labyrinth of dreamed losses and beginnings while trying to distinguish dream from awakening,” Bragança explains. The film incorporates elements of Baniwa worldview, conveyed through the character Suely, an Indigenous woman who lives in the city and works in a recycling facility. Focusing on the high rate of suicide among Indigenous people, the film unfolds in quiet, melancholic scenes that evoke moments of profound solitude.

More Violence

The days immediately following the 1973 military coup in Chile are depicted in the feature film Hangar Rojo in the Perspectives section, told from the perspective of Captain Jorge Silva — formerly an intelligence chief in the air force and coordinator of the army’s flight school. Shot in black and white, the film is based on real events and portrays the crossroads at which its protagonist finds himself. It deftly addresses themes such as the violence of military dictatorship, abuse of power, and the arbitrariness of decisions, rendered through an almost intimate portrayal of Jorge Silva. The murder of teachers and left‑wing students by right‑wing paramilitary groups in Colombia during the 1980s and 1990s stands at the center of the short film El León (Forum Expanded) by Diana Bustamante. The film assembles archival footage from the main lecture hall of the National University of Colombia — showing blood‑soaked bodies, burials, and moments of protest and revolt — accompanied by verses from poet León de Greiff (1895–1976).

Another notable Colombian film at this year’s Berlinale is the short Filme Pin in Forum Expanded, an essayistic work of memory based on a collection of pins (buttons) the director found in his grandfather’s attic. Shot on Super 8, the film traces the memories of a family across several eras, shaped by exile and political activism.