17/02/2026

LYFE TUESDAY | FEB 17, 2026

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Sandiwara about life in Malaysia, admitted he had been a fan of the Oscar winner since watching bootleg VHS tapes from her Hong Kong years that he found in New York City’s Chinatown. “There’s no small project for Michelle Yeoh. There’s only the he has already watched reminded him why he loved Berlin. “It’s so varied and it’s really about issues more than – well, I love glamour, don’t get me wrong – but sometimes it’s good to scratch a little bit,” Wenders said ahead of the ceremony. Wenders and the six other Michelle Yeoh lauded T HE Berlin Film Festival opened last Thursday night with the message that new voices matter as Hollywood legend Michelle Yeoh recalled how the festival supported her early in her career. “When I was still searching for where I belonged, Berlin welcomed me. That early o Actress receives lifetime achievement award at Berlin Film Festival

jury members will hand out the top Golden Bear prize at the festival’s closing ceremony this Saturday. Anora director Sean Baker was also at the festival for the first time to present Yeoh with the lifetime achievement award. Baker, who recently worked with Yeoh on a short film called

welcome mattered,” said Yeoh as she accepted an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement. “It said there was space for voices from the edges, refused to behave, for artistes still becoming themselves,” she said, clutching the prize to her chest during her speech. That message was further driven home with the opening film No Good Men , a political romantic comedy set in Kabul shortly before the Taliban took over in 2021 that was directed by the 35-year-old Iran-born Afghan filmmaker Sharhbanoo Sadat. “We could choose something really obvious, something from a filmmaker people have heard of, or with recognisable stars,” festival director Tricia Tuttle said on the red carpet. “But this is a film that made us laugh and made us cry.” Actors including Bella Ramsey, Neil Patrick Harris, Daniel Bruehl and Lars Eidinger assembled on the rainy carpet ahead of the ceremony, reported Reuters. Several attendees used their time before the cameras to make a political statement, with one group holding up sheets that said: “Watch out, fascists! We are more!” while others held up signs in support of the Iranian people. German director Wim Wenders, who is heading this year’s international jury, said the films

question: how do we make this hone s t ? How do we make this a l i v e ? ” said Baker.

Nightborn explores horrors of becoming parents From left: Haarla, Grint and Bergholm during a photocall to promote the movie Nightborn .

FINNISH director Hanna Bergholm knew from very early on she wanted her horror film Nightborn to tell a story about difficult emotions that arise when you become a parent and to break taboos that still exist around motherhood. “I knew that I wanted to tell a story about difficult emotions that appear when you are a parent, mother or a father – and how to face your emotions and yourself,” she said at the Berlin Film Festival, where the film – original title Yon Lapsi – is featured as part of the Competition section. This Nordic tale of mythological influences follows Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her British husband Jon, played by Harry Potter star Rupert Grint, as they retreat to the seclusion of Finland’s forests and excitedly embark on their new journey as parents. Once the baby is born, however, their joy fades quickly as his appearance and behaviour raise suspicions in Saga that something is terribly wrong. “It was very important that it feels like everything comes from real emotions of these characters,”

Bergholm said. Saga is the central character and the film tells things from her perspective. It is then up to the audience to decide how much of what is happening is real or not, she said. Grint said the film, which came after he had just found out he would be having a baby, resonated with him. “Being a parent is such a scary experience.” Bergholm also wanted to show the kind of physicality that is often left out of conversations. “I wanted to show the birth of people and the blood in that. And you know, these everyday life things, we all got it and a female body can break in childbirth in various ways and it’s something we never talk about. And it’s just human, it’s natural,” she said. When asked about whether she took inspiration from Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby , Bergholm answered: “When we wrote this with Ilja Rautsi, we kind of joked that this film starts where Rosemary’s Baby ends.” – Reuters

Yeoh holds the trophy after being awarded the Honorary Golden Bear during the opening ceremony of the 76th Berlinale, Europe’s first major film festival of the year. – AFPPIC

Karim Ainouz probes family dynamics with ‘operatic absurdity’ in drama Rosebush Pruning BRAZILIAN director Karim Ainouz’s new drama Rosebush Pruning superficiality,” she told the news conference.

Turner as Ed, who proudly refuses to read or write, as well as Robert, played by Lukas Gage, and Anna, played by Riley Keough, who try to stop Jack from moving in with his girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning). Beyond its exploration of social and familial structures, Letts said the film’s idle, privileged characters have political resonance. “One of the things that this movie gets at, on the face of it, is that this extreme disparity in wealth breeds bad behaviour, and in fact, probably creates fascism,” he said. Pamela Anderson said the characters reflected one aspect of our times. “There’s so much of this youth that is wealthy, that comes of wealthy, this inherited kind of wealth and this

The screenplay is by Efthimis Filippou, a frequent collaborator of Greek absurdist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, inspired by Italian director Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 debut Fists in the Pocket . A scathing critique of an Italian bourgeois, dysfunctional family, its themes, which Ainouz summed up as revolution and change, were resonant then in the way Rosebush Pruning is now. Ainouz, who has brought several films to Berlin, also aspires to take on another cinema icon. When a reporter asked up-and-comer Turner whether he might be the next James Bond, Ainouz jumped in: “It’s serious, one of my biggest dreams in life is to direct 007, so just for the record...” – Reuters

delves into patriarchy and trauma within an insular wealthy family, approaching the material with what actor Jamie Bell last Sunday described as “operatic absurdity”. “Inhabiting characters that don’t want for anything, nor have any ambition” was a tricky but interesting space, said Bell, who rose to fame in 2000 with Billy Elliot . “But it was really fun making this movie because there were no rules,” he told journalists at the Berlin Film Festival ahead of the premiere. Bell is Jack, the eldest of four siblings who live in a sprawling mansion in Spain with their blind father, played by Tracy Letts, two years after their mother has died. His siblings include Callum

From left: Ainouz, Turner, Elena Anaya, Letts, Anderson, Yorgos Stefanakos, Gage and Bell pose during a photocall to promote the movie Rosebush Pruning . – PICS FROM REUTERS