The 76th Berlin International Film Festival, running Feb. 12-22, has set the jury lineups for its Perspectives, Documentary, Generation and Shorts sections.
The Perspectives jury consists of Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui, German director Frédéric Hambalek, and Polish-Canadian programmer Dorota Lech. They will select a winner from the debut fiction features premiering in Berlin’s new-ish Perspectives sidebar. The award comes with €50,000 ($60,000) in prize money funded by German collection society GWFF, split between the director and producer.
Alaoui previously won the Sundance Special Jury Prize for her 2023 sci-fi thriller debut Animalia. Hambalek’s second feature, Was Marielle weiß, was in competition in Berlin last year. Lech serves as the Festival Director of the New Horizons International Film Festival and is a programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival.
Judging the Berlinale Documentary Award this year are directors Lemohang Mosese and Shaunak Sen , and film scholar and critic B Ruby Rich. Mosese, a Lesotho-born artist, premiered Ancestral Visions of the Future as a Berlinale Special at the festival last year. Rich, a professor emerita at UC Santa Cruz and former editor-in-chief of Film Quarterly, famously coined the term New Queer Cinema. Sen directed the Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes and produced the 2025 Berlinale Perspectives title Shadowbox.
The Generation International Jury features Indonesian director Khozy Rizal, German actress Lena Urzendowsky, and Sundance Director of Programming Kim Yutani. They will award the €7,500 ($9,000) Grand Prix for Best Film and the €2,500 ($3,000) Special Prize for Best Short Film across Berlin’s Generation Kplus and 14plus competitions. Rizal won a Crystal Bear in 2025 for his short Little Rebels Cinema Club. Urzendowsky starred in the 2025 Cannes Jury Prize-winning Sound of Falling and is known for her role in the German Netflix hit How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast). Yutani has led Sundance programming since 2018 and previously served as Artistic Director at Outfest Los Angeles.
This year’s International Short Film Jury will consist of Syrian director Ameer Fakher Eldin (The Stranger, Yunan), Austrian film critic Stefan Grissemann, and German artist and author Gabriele Stötzer. They will pick the Gold and Silver Bear winners for best short film and the Berlin short film candidate for next year’s European Film Awards. In addition, they award the €20,000 ($24,000) Berlinale Shorts CUPRA Filmmaker Award.
