Films from Denis Côté (pictured) and filmmaking duo Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli are among the Canadian films travelling to Germany for the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).

The films were revealed as part of a first look at the festival’s programming. The full lineup, including screening times and locations, will be released on Feb. 4, 2025, according to Berlinale’s website.

Côté’s documentary Paul will have its world premiere in the Panorama lineup.

The film follows a cleaner who uses his job and social media to alleviate depression and social anxiety. Paul is produced by Coop Video de Montreal’s Hany Ouichou and Karine Bélanger and will be distributed in Canada by Montreal’s Métropole Films.

The Quebec-based filmmaker has a long history with the German film festival, consistently screening his films there for over a decade. In 2013, Côté won the festival’s Alfred Bauer Silver Bear for Vic and Flo Saw a Bear and in 2021 he won the festival’s Best Director prize in the Berlinale Encounters program for Hygiène sociale.

Selected for the Gala lineup is Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli’s Honey Bunch (Cat People, Rhombus Media).

The film, also making its world premiere, is produced by Sims-Fewer, Mancinelli and Becky Yeboah along with Rhombus Media’s Niv Fichman, Kevin Krikst and Fraser Ash.

Canadian actors Grace Glowicki (Tito), Ben Petrie (The Heirloom) and Julian Richings (Supernatural) star in the film alongside Jason Isaacs, Kate Dickie and India Brown. The film follows a couple who seek experimental treatments at a remote facility. Elevation Pictures is the film’s Canadian distributor.

Canadian DJ Eric San’s (also known as Kid Koala) debut, the animated feature Space Cadet (Les Films Outsiders) is set to world premiere in the festival’s Generation lineup.

The film, written by Mylène Chollet and produced by Ginette Petit and Michel Pradier, follows a robot that is left alone after the person the robot cares for departs on a mission to space.

Two short films will also be making their international premiere in the Generations lineup: Halima Elkhatabi’s Fantas and Alicia K. Harris’ On a Sunday at Eleven.

Berlinale runs from Feb. 13 to 23, 2025.

Photo by Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Images