by Vannah Taylor, Staff Writer

The tenth annual Final Girls Berlin Film Festival is in the books. As our world continues to evolve, as progress is met with regression, and unpacking our existence means exposing new wounds, a film space like Final Girls Berlin continues to be a beacon of light and a hopeful reminder of the ways women and non-binary folks continue to make waves and challenge paradigms in an already boundary-pushing genre like horror. Not only offering 12 different shorts blocks and 8 different features over this short weekend, this festival was ever-so dedicated to a unique selection of talks and workshops–something that makes Final Girls Berlin continue to stand out amongst other genre fests. For those who may have missed it, here are our highlights of Final Girls Berlin 2025.

The double feature that set the tone of the film for me, as well as highlighted everything I love about the films to grace our screens over the last year, was Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance and Sasha Rainbow’s Grafted. Evident by the waves The Substance made through this last awards season, audiences and filmmakers alike are resonating with themes of unwanted transformation, the need to peel away at our imperfections, and the need to embody a more perfect you. There is something to be said about these representations of deviant girlhood and the desire to embrace the natural cycles of life, also highlighted in the fest’s Life Cycles shorts block, which we have luckily already reviewed here.

The horror genre will always be ripe for the exploration of dysmorphia and identity. Horror fans like myself can always make the argument that there is an inherent queerness always present in a genre primarily concerned with otherness and monstrosity, but that does not mean it is not all the more exciting when horror can be explicitly queer. From body swapping fantasies like Cancer szn (dir. Zach Green) to displays of the extreme in Tastes like Pork (dir. Dante Dammit), the Queer Horror shorts block (ahead of the festival’s screening of Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow) this year featured an array of stories that speak to the trans experience. One overarching theme was consumption, which is hashed out more thoroughly in Avery Coffey’s coverage here.

The final feature of the fest spotlighted another exploration of how it feels to be alienated on the basis of one’s queerness, You Are Not Me (dir. Marisa Crespo and Moisés Romera). This Christmas horror follows Aitana (Roser Tapias) and Gabi (Yapoena Silva), who surprise Aitana’s family with a holiday visit. This slow burn captures the claustrophobia created by the pressures of conformity and how it feels to be not just rejected but replaced. This feeling of rejection or replaceability is also present in Renee Zhan’s Shé (part of the Pop Horror shorts block), which follows a young violinist, Fei, whose insecurities fester after the arrival of new student Mei.

Aside from the delicious assortment of features and shorts, some of the real meat at the heart of the work Final Girls Berlin does to uplift femme and nonbinary voices happens in the various talks and workshops offered. “Discussing and Drawing Kei Fujiwara,” hosted by Thany Sanches, paid much needed tribute to the often overlooked filmmaker, Kei Fijuwara. Many fans may recognize her as the woman in Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), but outside of acting, she is a visionary director and visual artist in her own right. This workshop discussed her surrealist depictions of bodily transformation while allowing attendees to create their own grotesqueries through drawing exercises. For folks who were unable to attend Final Girls Berlin, either in person or online, and are hungry for interesting discussions such as this or “‘I have to climb inside you now’: Liminal Spaces and States in Dead Ringers,” similar talks from previous festivals can always be found on the their YouTube channel.

These are just some of my highlights and favorite offerings from the 10th annual Final Girls Berlin Film Festival. So much is jam packed into a single weekend, it is practically impossible to share all of the goodies. Between future festivals, screenings for Berlin folks, and virtual talks for horror fans around the world, something new will always be on the horizon for the celebration of femmes in the horror space.

Additional Final Girls Berlin Fest coverage from MovieJawn can be found here

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