Pleasant Places

Director: Burak Çevik

Year: 2026

At midnight, two lab assistants study an unknown substance using machines and procedures that are unclear to us. They pursue knowledge through the strict logic of the laboratory. As exhaustion settles in, one of the assistants brews Turkish coffee for the other, and the night shifts. The process becomes a fortune-telling, and the scientific gaze gives way to intuition. Moving from analysis to foresight, the two women imagine another method of knowing, a space where rational inquiry and intuitive perception coexist. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Forum Expanded - World premiere

Director: Karimah Ashadu

Year: 2025

With no single protagonist or linear narrative, the film immerses the viewer in a spectacle of strength through an intimate portrait of bodybuilders in the slums of Lagos. Inflated muscles, bulging veins and luminous skin glistening with sweat fill the screen. Shot almost entirely in close-ups, the camera hovers so near its subjects, moving softly like breath on skin, that at times figures become blurred, abstracted forms. Karimah Ashadu’s slow, measured pans across backs, chests and arms meditate on visibility, drawing attention to the embodiment and representation of the Black male body without rendering it singular or fixed. The metallic clang of barbells is punctuated with guttural sounds of exertion set against the ambience of the streets. Breath and muscle move in syncopated sonic choreography, and the men’s commitment to the ritual of maintaining the body is evident. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Forum Expanded - International Premiere

Director: Alex Crowton

Year: 2026

In the summer of 1997, two 19 year old lovers set out from the Birmingham suburbs in a classic car. Their destination: the grave of Nick Drake, whose music had become a shared language between them and a comfort for their unacknowledged pain. This journey, captured in memory and reimagined on screen, becomes a meditation on youth, longing, and the quiet power of music to shape identity and connection where deeply hidden vulnerabilities can be shared. Interwoven with this personal narrative are intimate audio interviews with artists from different generations who reflect on how Drake’s music shaped their lives and creative paths. Their insights echo and deepen the emotional terrain of the road trip, creating a layered portrait of influence, absence, and resonance.