From 02.-04.10.2026, Mubi Fest returns. Like last year, the hub is Silent Green, this time joined by Kino Arsenal. The program pulls you in, picks you up, and takes you straight to the cinema.

We’re kicking things off with the Berlin premiere of Coward, a queer Mubi Release. Its protagonist, Pierre, is desperate to find his place amid the trenches and frontlines of the First World War. At the front, he meets Francis, who is staging a play there. As the world collapses around them, a tender love story unfolds.

Hale County, Tag für Tag is a collaboration with C/O Berlin, inspired by the current exhibition “The Heart of the Matter”. Mubi and the gallery are screening the film by RaMell Ross. The theme remains the same: How is Black life represented in photography and film, and who holds the power to define it? Ross created a poetic documentary that follows the Black community in rural Alabama over five years.

At midday, we pick up where the previous evening left off at the Mubi Live Podcast, a conversation with director Lukas Dhont. His work is shaped by a fine-tuned sensitivity to themes such as gender, sexuality and empathy, and Coward is no exception. Talking with Mubi podcast host Rico Gagliano, he discusses surprising inspirations and his career so far.

For fans of fashion and excess, next up is Making Marie Antoinette, the documentary about Sofia Coppola’s iconic film, directed by none other than her mother, Eleanor. At the talk When Artwork and Trailers Become Iconic, Mubi’s Creative Studio explains what makes a good trailer. What does it take to captivate an audience in just a few minutes? Afterwards, actor Langston Uibel and Matthijs Wouter Knol (Director of the European Film Academy) swap notes on their favorite trailers.

If Saturday (03.10.) still isn’t enough for you, head to what is probably the year’s best sapphic production. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is pure ecstasy: fake blood on pastel and clever play with clichés. This contemporary take on 80s slasher horror aesthetics offers meta layers galore, dyke drama, a truly great scene with Kentucky Fried Chicken and, of course, gay icon Gillian Anderson alongside Hannah Einbinder, with wonderfully offbeat chemistry.

We start Sunday (04.10.) in the snow. Nuisance Bear is a documentary about the troubles of the polar bear. It makes the bear its protagonist and, along the way, upends prevailing conventions of nature documentaries. An Inuit guide leads us through the film and through the question of who shared landscapes actually belong to. Clear answers are in short supply.

The finale is the animated film Bouchra. Bouchra, a Prada-wearing lesbian filmmaker and coyote, sets out to make a film about her life in New York. In doing so, she confronts the tangled dynamics of past relationships and reaches out to her mother, who still lives in Casablanca. Moving between live action and 3D animation, the film bids farewell to old ideas and representations of queer identity and generational crises, without glossing over them.

That’s just the tasting menu; the full program is on the website. So, take a look, book your tickets, and head to the cinema. It’s going to be a celebration.

Text: Inga Krumme / Credits: Mubi, Sofia Coppola

Mubi Fest
02.–04.10.2026. Find the full program here.

@mubideutschland

Everyone knows Kino International. One of East Berlin’s iconic buildings, it stands on Karl-Marx-Allee alongside its siblings, Mokka-Milch-Eisbar and Café Moskau. They were designed (among others) by architect Josef Kaiser.  His work is now the subject of the exhibition Building for the GDR at the Berlinische Galerie.

In the BG’s central exhibition room, visitors are greeted by an unconventional architectural model: Tracey Snelling has taken on his Grosshügelhaus, Kaiser’s grand vision for GDR housing developments.

Across roughly 200 square meters, the show traces Kaiser’s work through original plans, collages, photos, models and films, much of it drawn from his estate, which only recently became accessible. The pastel-painted exhibition room opens with his early neoclassical designs, including the Maxhütte cultural center in Unterwellenborn. Kaiser’s original design drew on the modernism of Mart Stam and Hans Poelzig, but it was rejected by the GDR leadership and ultimately built in an altered form.

Next comes the architectural upheaval of the ’50s and ’60s. Together with Werner Dutschke and Edmund Collein, Kaiser developed what is now known as the second construction phase of the former Stalinallee, today’s Karl-Marx-Allee. Here, standardized building elements and serial construction methods merged with a new, modern formal language. Kino International, Café Moskau and Hotel Berolina are among the best-known buildings from this phase.

One of the most beautiful parts of this architect’s exhibition is the designs that were never realized, or only partially so. These include large-scale studies for the socialist city, megastructures, and designs for special buildings such as the Friedrichstadtpalast and the Palace of the Republic, as well as projects beyond Berlin.

In doing so, the exhibition tells the story of the conditions under which architecture was made in the GDR. Kaiser worked for many years within fixed collectives and state structures; the projects shown are therefore listed under his name without attributing sole authorship to him. After 1990, some of his best-known buildings were demolished or heavily altered. Others are now protected as historic landmarks. The Mokka-Milch-Eisbar, for instance, reopened this year, unfortunately with a rather questionable interior renovation. Anyone who wants to see it in person can join the Karl-Marx-Allee architecture tours held as part of the exhibition.

Three contemporary positions round out the view of Kaiser’s work: Veronika Kellndorfer engages with Café Moskau, Karsten Konrad with the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Tracey Snelling, as mentioned above, with Kaiser’s visions of the socialist city. In this way, the show builds a bridge to the present and asks: How do we handle our architectural heritage and the political ideas embedded within it?

Text: Inga Krumme / Credits: Rolf Vetter, Karl-Marx-Allee between Alexanderplatz and Strausberger Platz, 1970, © IRS Erkner, Photo: Rolf Vetter; Josef Kaiser, Zeichnung des Kino Kosmos, undated, © Berlinische Galerie, Digitalisat: A. E. Witte; Schnepp Renou, Kino International, 2026, Draft: Kollektiv Josef Kaiser © Schnepp Renou

Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobstr.124–128, 10969 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map

Josef Kaiser: Building for the GDR 28.08.2026–01.02.2027.
As part of the exhibition, architecture tours will take place on Karl-Marx-Allee on 25.09. & 16.10.2026, 13–15h.

@berlinischegalerie