This is a landmark year for the Berlin International Film Festival, being its 75th year, a huge milestone. This is also a personal milestone for me, as it is the 27th year that I have been working with the Berlinale, as it is called, in Indian and South Asian film programming, now as South Asia Delegate. Six Indian and India-related films have been selected at the Berlinale that runs from February 13-23, 2025. In addition, at least eight film talents have been selected by the Berlinale Talents from India/South Asia/South Asian Diaspora, bringing the total number of selected films and talents to 14. This is an amazing achievement, given that each film was selected from about 8,000 film submissions in 2025, and the talents from 3,836 submissions from 123 nations this year.

The six films include Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi’s Baksho Bondi (Shadowbox, Bengali and Hindi), in the new Perspectives section for first fiction features; Arjun Talwar’s Letters from Wolf Street (Listy z Wilczej, Polish) in the Panorama section; Natesh Hegde’s Vaghachipani (Tiger’s Pond, Kannada) in the Forum section; Rima Das’ Village Rockstars-2, Assamese, in the Generation 14plus section for older teenagers and adults; Kush Badhwar and Vyjayanthi Rao’s Beneath the Placid Lake (English), in the Forum Expanded section; and Rhea Shukla’s Ruse, a short film (Hindi, English) in the Generation K Plus section for children and everyone else.