The 73rd Berlin International Film Festival began on 16 February, and Film London alongside the British Film Commission are flying the flag for the London film industry, along with the wider UK nations and regions, at the dedicated UK stand.

We will be highlighting how the UK’s film production landscape remains as buoyant as ever, with inward investment spend reaching £5.37 billion in 2022, a 6% increase on 2021 figures.

The Film London team will also meet with other members of Cine Regio in Berlin. This year marks the 10th anniversary of CineRegio Green - a subgroup of CineRegio - whose aim is to raise awareness and share knowledge on sustainable film production tools, measures and policies. Since its inception in 2013, GreenRegio Green has implemented a number of tools and initiatives including launching the Green Manifesto, which has now been signed by over 40 members.

In the public programme, two FLAMIN alumni will screen their work as part of the Forum strand, in which documentaries stand alongside personal essay films and installations, revolving around political and personal legacies.

Luke Fowler, winner of the inaugural Film London Jarman Award in 2008, will screen his portrait of Scottish poet and filmmaker Margaret Tait, Being in a Place, which takes its inspiration from her unrealised project about her home region of Orkney, while the festival will also screen the world premiere of 2021 Film London Lodestar Graeme Arnfield's Home Invasion, a nightmarish essay film on the history of the doorbell.

Meanwhile, Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping's thriller Femme, filmed and set in London, will have its world premeire as part of the Festival's Panorama strand.

The film, based on their 2021 BAFTA-nominated short film of the same name, stars Nathan Stewart-Jarret and George MacKay, and tells the story of a drag queen whose life is destroyed by a homophobic attack and then plots revenge on one of the perpetrators when he spots him in a gay sauna.