From February 18-23, 2023, Berlinale Talents will welcome 204 selected filmmakers to Berlin: for a community of 68 countries, the 6 days exchanging experiences around the theme “You Must Be Joking: Humour In Serious Times” are a ticket to join what is one of the largest worldwide film communities, with soon to be 10,000 Berlinale Talents alumni.

The 204 Talents were chosen from 3,295 applications from 125 countries. The final selection this year includes filmmakers from countries that have rarely been represented at Berlinale Talents before (Myanmar, Palestine, Nepal, Mongolia, Lesotho, Bangladesh, Costa Rica and for the first time: Saint Lucia). Many of the Talents have already participated in renowned film projects or initiated them themselves. More than 40 Talents have been involved in previous Berlinale films as directors or in other capacities, among them Evelyn Rack, the editor of last year’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino opening film Wir könnten genauso gut tot sein.

They are all united by their motivation to make a difference in their living and working environment – be it artistic or socio-political. In her feature film debut How is Katia?, Ukrainian director Christina Tynkevych, deals with the social power dynamics in Ukraine. She is one of a total of six Talents with a Ukrainian citizenship this year. Australian actress Eliza Scanlen, well known for her roles in Little Women by Greta Gerwig and Babyteeth, for which she won the Australian Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, is making her debut as a director at Berlinale Talents.

Melis Aksoy is a Turkish digital set designer who has worked on numerous award-winning US-American film and series projects, including American Horror Story, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and most recently Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Pedro Harres is a Porto Alegre-born, Berlin-based director and multimedia artist; his current virtual reality project From The Main Square won the Venice Immersive Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival this year.

Director Aboozar Amini lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Amsterdam. He is currently developing his first feature film The Cineaste, and his internationally acclaimed cinema documentary Kabul, City in the Wind (2018) is an exploration of his impressions of everyday life in Afghanistan. BAFTA Cymru nominated film and animation director, writer and producer Joseph Wallace is highlighted by the London International Animation Festival as “one of the UK’s most extraordinary stop-motion directors”.

Director Dornaz Hajiha is one of four Talents from Iran. Her debut feature film Like a Fish on the Moon was selected in the Proxima Competition of the 56th Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2022. She is currently developing her second feature Diaphanous.

The 204 Talents (112 female, 83 male, three diverse and six no answer) come from acting, cinematography, directing, distribution, film criticism, production, production and digital set design, screenwriting, sound design, film composition, film editing, and audience design. In addition to the summit, 40 Talents are also developing and presenting projects for cinema to virtual reality in the Talents Labs.