Berlin & Beyond Film Festival Board President Alexander Behrmann, left, and Director Sophoan Sorn at the historic and newly renovated Castro Theatre in San Francisco, where this year’s festival returns.
Giselle Garza Lerma/S.F. Chronicle
The newly restored ceiling inside the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco on March 12. The Berlin & Beyond Film Festival returns to the venue after its $41 million renovation.
Giselle Garza Lerma/S.F. Chronicle
Berlin & Beyond Film Festival Director Sophoan Sorn, left, and Board President Alexander Behrmann inside the newly renovated Castro Theatre in San Francisco. This year’s festival will return to the historic venue for its 30th anniversary.
Giselle Garza Lerma/S.F. Chronicle
Berlin & Beyond, the San Francisco film festival devoted to German-language cinema, debuted in 1996 at the Castro Theatre with “Martha,” a 1974 rarity by Rainer Werner Fassbinder about a woman in an abusive marriage. It was not an auspicious start to the festival.
“It’s a great movie, but not an opening night movie,” recalled festival founder Ingrid Eggers, with a laugh, during a recent conversation with the Chronicle. “It’s a very depressing movie. People walked out while we were showing it.
Berlin & Beyond Film Festival: Opening night film “Köln 75.” 6 p.m. Thursday, March 19. $30-$40. • Through Monday, March 23. $12-$40; $200 festival pass. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., S.F.; Vogue Theater, 3290 Sacramento St., S.F.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Phyllis Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., S.F.; Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College Ave., Berkeley. www.berlinbeyond.com/2026
“We then changed course and had more entertaining movies for opening night.”
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The festival, a program of Goethe-Institut San Francisco, got past that awkward beginning and now celebrates 30 years in San Francisco this month with a crowd-pleaser, “Köln 75.” The film dramatizes a true event when a teenage concert promoter (Mala Emde) convinces American pianist and composer Keith Jarrett (John Magaro) to perform in Cologne. The live recording of the show went on to become the bestselling jazz record of all time.
Emde and director Ido Fluk will be at the Castro on opening night on Thursday, March 19.
German film director Wim Wenders, left, with Berlin & Beyond Film Festival co-founder and former director Ingrid Eggers in 2009, where his film “Palermo Shooting” made its U.S. premiere at the Castro Theatre.
Courtesy of Ingrid Eggers
Between “Martha” and “Köln 75” is a rich history. Over the years, Berlin & Beyond has hosted many giants of German cinema, including directors Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Doris Dörrie and Fatih Akin, whose latest film “Amrum” screens at this year’s festival. When Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2004 Hitler biopic “Downfall,” a film that later spawned countless internet memes, screened at Berlin & Beyond, star Bruno Ganz took questions on the Castro stage.
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“You have to give the audience something special,” said Berlin & Beyond Board President Alexander Behrmann.
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Not only does the multiday event annually presents films that don’t yet have theatrical distribution “but there’s also the chance that you come together with filmmakers and actors.”
“I was looking at all the programming from the past, and I feel that we have the same vibe the festival has always had,” noted Sophoan Sorn, now in his 16th year as Berlin & Beyond’s festival director. “We’ve always been challenged to meet the moment, trying to bring the best German cinema now. That is what our mission has been.”
German actor Hannelore Elsner, left, with Berlin & Beyond Film Festival co-founder Ingrid Eggers at the 2009 festival. Elsner starred in that year’s opening night film, “Cherry Blossoms.”
Courtesy of Ingrid Eggers
When Eggers and the Goethe-Institut founded Berlin & Beyond, it was to fill a gap in the San Francisco cinema firmament. Three decades ago, there were more screens and more art houses in the city, but few booked German films. The San Francisco International Film Festival showed some German films, but nothing compared to the number of French films on offer — a shortage Berlin & Beyond would help change, eventually inspiring similar events in other cities.
As to the “Beyond” in the festival’s title, while films hail chiefly from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, there are also movies from Italy, Luxembourg and other countries part of its programming.
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The festival’s reach may extend across Europe, but its heart has long been in San Francisco’s Castro Theatre, the newly renovated movie palace that will host screenings again for the first time since 2022. Additional screenings will continue to take place at other venues — Vogue Theater, the Phyllis Wattis Theater at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley — but Sorn and Behrmann are thrilled to return to the event’s historical home base.
Berlin & Beyond Film Festival Director Sophoan Sorn, left, and Bpard President Alexander Behrmann stand in front of the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco, where this year’s event returns.
Giselle Garza Lerma/S.F. Chronicle
Festival favorite Christian Petzold returns with “Miroirs No. 3,” a drama about a young woman unsettled by the family who takes her in after a car crash. Michael Kofler’s historical drama “A Land Within (Zweitland)” is set in 1961 South Tyrol during a period of unrest as the region’s German-speaking population pushed for more political autonomy. Albert Oehlen’s “Bad Painter” is one of the last films to star the late German film legend Udo Kier as an artist based on Oehlen. “Kreator – Hate & Hope” documents a legendary thrash metal band.
“Our festival shows the diversity of German cinema,” Behrmann said. “It gives you the chance to get a picture of Germany that’s not just Oktoberfest and lederhosen.”
This year’s programming, organizers say, is also designed in part to coax audiences out of their living rooms and back into theaters.
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“An anniversary is an opportunity to look back, but it’s also a chance to pause and look towards the future,” Behrmann continued. “I’m sure we all agree a film festival is a special thing. It is all about the community, and it is like a window into a different world.”
Pam Grady is a freelance writer.