Eight under-the-radar gems from the Berlin Film Fes­ti­val 2019

This year’s Berli­nale may have been low on super­star auteurs, but there was still plen­ty of cin­e­mat­ic gold to be found tucked way in its 400-strong film pro­gramme. Here are eight under-the-radar titles we rec­om­mend seek­ing out over the com­ing months.

The most pulse-quick­en­ing fea­ture at this year’s Berli­nale was Ale­jan­dro Lan­des’ hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry war thriller Monos. Like Apoc­a­lypse Now crossed with an episode of Skins, it fol­lows eight ado­les­cent sol­diers on a mys­te­ri­ous mis­sion high in a misty moun­tain range. These war­riors might be handy with a machine gun and have badass names like Ram­bo, Wolf and Big­foot, but they’re still teens, and liable to make unwise choic­es. Before you can say ​‘Lord of the Flies’, the pla­toon splin­ters and chaos ensues. Mica Levi’s ele­men­tal score shifts from spright­ly to bone-shak­ing, and proves the per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment to Lan­des’ sur­re­al imagery. Jamie Dunn

Is there any­thing left that hasn’t been explored in films about the heady days of mid­dle school? The charm­ing fea­ture debut from Genevieve Dulude-De Celles, Une Colonie abides by the laws of an awk­ward but cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly suc­cess­ful com­ing of age jour­ney. Camille, the young girl at the fore, isn’t extra­or­di­nary, but her life is opened up with effer­ves­cent com­pas­sion. Not dis­sim­i­lar to recent touch­stone teen movies Eighth Grade and Lady Bird, the film focus­es on the in-between details, the songs and sighs that make up the moments that shape you the most. ​‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ doesn’t sound rev­o­lu­tion­ary any­more, but its effec­tive­ness still remains. Ella Kemp

A sweet love tri­an­gle plays out in Sho Miyake’s irre­sistible third fea­ture. Two insou­ciant hip­ster-bros – book­store clerk Boku and his unem­ployed room­mate Shizuo – share bunk beds and beers in their cramped flat dur­ing all-night bond­ing ses­sions dur­ing swel­ter­ing sum­mer nights in Hokkai­do, Japan. Their bro­mance is com­pli­cat­ed, how­ev­er, when Boku starts dat­ing work col­league Sachiko, who might be more suit­ed to his best friend. ​“Some­times I don’t know what he’s think­ing,” Sachiko con­fides in Shizuo. ​“Prob­a­bly because he isn’t think­ing any­thing,” he sug­gests. Awash with moments of eupho­ria and malaise, Miyake’s film feels truth­ful and alive. JD

Like her award-win­ning shorts, Jen­nifer Reeder’s Knives and Skin is con­cerned with the com­plex inner lives of teenage girls as they fight their way through the hos­tile world of high school. Tak­ing the famil­iar teen movie codes of proms, cheer­lead­ers and let­ter jack­et-wear­ing jocks, Reed­er gives these well-worn tropes a thrilling fem­i­nist spin. The sex­u­al pol­i­tics are fierce and the atmos­phere uncan­ny, while Reeder’s daz­zling use of lan­guorous dis­solves, synth score and neon light­ing cre­ates an intox­i­cat­ing hyper­re­al­i­ty where young women have mag­i­cal pow­ers and their strength seems to emanate from the élan of ​’80s pop songs. JD

Xaver Böhm’s meta­phys­i­cal farce opens with the dis­turb­ing sight of a young man’s heart being con­sumed by a crow. So kicks off a dark night of the soul for hypochon­dri­ac Juri (Noah Saave­dra) as he wan­ders the streets of Berlin and into the path of Death (Marko Mandić), who offers him one last night on the town before snuff­ing out his life. Mov­ing at a clip from smoky peep-show bars to games of Russ­ian roulette, Böhm’s debut is full of wild set-pieces, but its great­est asset is the vital­i­ty of its per­form­ers – star­dom sure­ly beck­ons for Saave­dra. JD

In Naples, a pack of bored ado­les­cent boys skulk around the streets look­ing for dan­ger. A string of non-actors (led by one-to-watch Francesco di Napoli) dis­cov­er the thrill of crime, as the 15-year-olds get involved with drugs and guns. There’s a fine line between con­don­ing and con­demn­ing the peak of self­ish, reck­less play­time, but direc­tor Clau­dio Gio­van­nesi suc­cess­ful­ly finds a bal­ance. What tran­spires is a hyp­not­ic por­trait of spi­ralling youth, one that touch­es the depths of dan­ger but always keeps a head above water. EK

Bait may look like a knack­ered print unearthed from the silent era, but its con­tent couldn’t be more cur­rent – it’s our first Brex­it movie. It con­cerns the class ten­sions bub­bling over in a sleepy Corn­wall fish­ing vil­lage dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son, where well-mon­eyed Lon­don-types are rub­bing the skint locals up the wrong way. Chopped into impres­sion­is­tic close-ups of sneer­ing faces and clenched fists, direc­tor Mark Jenkin deploys jux­ta­po­si­tions and flash-for­wards to deft and wit­ty effect. The result is both a gor­geous cel­e­bra­tion of tra­di­tion­al film­mak­ing tech­niques and an angry howl at the destruc­tion of Cornwall’s ancient com­mu­ni­ties. JD

Four Japan­ese school kids are orphaned, so they decide to form a rock band. This mis­matched log­ic is one that dic­tates every improb­a­ble but always excit­ing chain of events in Mako­to Nagahisa’s We Are Lit­tle Zom­bies. Punc­tu­at­ed by an 8‑bit sound­track and the over­sat­u­rat­ed, over­crowd­ed aes­thet­ic of a Nin­ten­do game, the film doc­u­ments the process of mourn­ing with­out grief, ado­les­cence with­out emo­tion. It’s a love let­ter to every morsel of pop cul­ture used to mop up the tears cried over death, tri­umph­ing a dead­pan sense of humour and bound­less imag­i­na­tion. EK