On the podcast, Alex Heeney discusses three Berlinale 2026 highlights directed by women: Elle Sofe Sara’s Sámi musical Arrú, Sandulela Asanda’s queer South African film Black Burns Fast, and Sophie Heldman’s 1810 queer period drama The Education of Jane Cumming.
Some of the most boundary-pushing cinema at the Berlinale isn’t in the main competition — it’s tucked away in the sidebars, where most of the press never look.
That’s often where you find films experimenting with form, genre, and subject matter in ways that feel genuinely new.
In this episode, I’m talking about three of those films — each centred on women navigating different systems of oppression, and each pushing their storytelling traditions forward in interesting ways.
Arrú directed by Elle Sofe Sara
A Sámi musical from Norway, and the first feature-length Indigenous musical I’ve come across. The film uses the form of the musical and the Sámi tradition of joik to tell a story about land rights and conflict within a community.
Black Burns Fast directed by Sandulela Asanda
A South African coming-of-age story about two queer Black teenage girls at an elite private school still shaped by the legacy of apartheid. The film is directed by a Black woman in a national cinema where most narrative queer cinema has historically been made by and about white men.
The Education of Jane Cumming directed by Sophie Heldman
A 19th century Scottish period drama based on the first documented legal case involving accusations of lesbianism in the UK. The film explores class, racial, and sexual hierarchies shaping women’s lives at the time — hink Belle meets Portrait of a Lady on Fire meets An Education.
Taken together, these films show how contemporary filmmakers are finding new ways to dramatize the systems shaping women’s lives — whether that’s colonial land politics, the lingering legacy of apartheid, or the class and racial hierarchies of the 19th century.
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Show Notes
“You can’t survive colonialism without being epic”: Read my interview with Loretta Todd
Related Episodes to this Berlinale 2026 podcast
Ep. 133. Berlinale 2023: Here, The Teachers’ Lounge, Delegation, and more
Ep. 188. My Berlinale Talk: Why the first conversation about a film shouldn’t be the last
Podcast Credits
Alex Heeney edited, produced, and recorded the episode.
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Follow Alex Heeney on Instagram, Bluesky, and Twitter.
An AI-generated transcript for the episode is available on Apple Podcasts.
