Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Mickey 17’ Set for Berlin

The Berlin Film Festival has confirmed that Bong Joon Ho‘s highly anticipated Mickey 17, the director’s first feature since his historic Oscar sweep with Parasite, will have its international premiere out of competition in Berlin. The film will bow first in South Korea on Jan. 28, and will roll out in the U.S. on March 7. Warner Bros. is releasing the film worldwide.

The Robert Pattinson-starrer will get a Berlinale Special gala screening at the 2025 Berlinale. The sci-fi film features an ensemble cast including Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo alongside Pattinson.

Dylan Southern’s family drama The Thing With Feathers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, also secured a Berlinale Special slot. The adaptation of Max Porter’s novel follows a father grappling with his wife’s sudden death while raising their young children.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the upcoming series from Australian director Justin Kurzel (The Order, Macbeth), starring Jacob Elordi, is also heading to Berlin. The Australian drama, adapted from Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel, chronicles a World War II hero confronting his past.

Other Special additions include Min Kyu-dong’s South Korean revenge thriller The Old Woman With the Knife, scheduled for a late-night Berlinale Special premiere; and Brazilian filmmaker Anna Muylaert’s drama The Best Mother in the World, featuring Shirley Cruz and Seu Jorge.

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Berlin will screen Claude Lanzmann’s landmark documentary Shoah in its entirety, all 9 hours and 26 minutes, at the Akademie der Künste, marking the centenary of Lanzmann’s birth and the film’s 40th anniversary. Accompanying this screening will be Guillaume Ribot’s Je n’avais que le néant – “Shoah” par Lanzmann (All I Had Was Nothingness), which draws from 220 hours of previously unreleased footage shot by Lanzmann.

In parallel announcements, the festival’s Panorama section revealed that Andreas Prochaska’s Welcome Home Baby will open the sidebar and confirmed several more features screening in the section, including new works from directors Ina Weisse and Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay. Berlin’s Forum section completed its 2025 lineup, which will feature 30 films from five continents, including seven feature debuts. Notable entries include Stefan Hayn’s 2024, Vitaly Mansky’s Ukrainian war documentary Time to the Target, and Brandon Kramer’s Holding Liat, which follows a U.S.-Israeli family advocating for relatives held hostage by Hamas.

The Generation program of children and youth films also announced its full selection. The sidebar’s 14-plus category will open with Brendan Canty’s Christy, with Rafaela Camelo’s The Nature of Invisible Things) kicking off the Kplus section.

The full Berlinale lineup will be unveiled Jan. 21. The 2025 Berlinale runs Feb. 13-23.