Film Guests
The 30th Anniversary Berlin & Beyond Film Festival is honored to welcome to San Francisco this dynamic and immensely talented delegation of film creatives: Mala Emde (Actor, Köln 75 and Blind at Heart), Ido Fluk (Director/Screenwriter, Köln 75), Mia Maariel Meyer (Director, 22 Lengths), Thomas Prenn (Actor, A Land Within and Blind at Heart), Charlotte Taschen (Actor/Producer, Bad Painter), and Burhan Qurbani (Director/Screenwriter, No Beast. So Fierce.).
Mala Emde
The Berlin & Beyond Film Festival celebrates the ongoing career achievements of German cinema, television, and stage actor Mala Emde with the 2026 Spotlight Award in Acting. One of her generation’s most vibrant actors, Mala Emde recently starred in the award-winning Köln 75 (2025). She first gained acclaim in My Daughter Anne Frank (2014) and later studied at Berlin’s Ernst Busch Academy and London’s Lambda. During her studies, she maintained a prolific screen presence in projects like the road film 303 and the hit series Charité. Emde’s international profile rose with award-winning performances in And Tomorrow the Entire World and Skin Deep, both of which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, and Blind at Heart, the adaptation of the Julia Franck novel, “Die Mittagsfrau.” Beyond her film work, she was a permanent ensemble member at Theater Basel from 2021 to 2024. Upcoming projects for Emde include the Netflix production We Are One, the rom-com Any Other Night, and Marc Rothemund’s 2026 comedy Das gewisse Etwas.
Mala Emde at the Festival:
Thursday, March 19: The Castro Theatre, San Francisco
6:00 PM: Köln 75 112 min. + Opening Ceremony & Q&A – Buy Tickets
Friday, March 20: Vogue Theater, San Francisco
7:30 PM: Blind at Heart 136 min. + Q&A – Buy Tickets
Sunday, March 22: Rialto Cinemas® Elmwood, Berkeley
1:45 PM: Köln 75 112 min. + Q&A – Buy Tickets
Ido Fluk
Described by Variety as “a talent to be watched”, Ido Fluk was previously co-writer and director of the Tribeca competition title The Ticket (2017) and the Edinburgh title Never Too Late (2011), which also won the Regard D’Or at the Fribourg International Film Festival. He is currently working on the HBO series Empty Mansions in collaboration with Joe Wright and the legal thriller 24 Hours in June with James Schamus. Fluk is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and lives in New York, where he used to play in bands but no longer does.
Ido Fluk at the Festival:
Thursday, March 19: The Castro Theatre, San Francisco
6:00 PM: Köln 75 112 min. + Opening Ceremony & Q&A – Buy Tickets
Sunday, March 22: Rialto Cinemas® Elmwood, Berkeley
1:45 PM: Köln 75 112 min. + Q&A – Buy Tickets
Mia Maariel Meyer
Mia Maariel Meyer was born in Braunschweig in 1981. She studied film and screenwriting in New York and London, where she graduated from Goldsmiths University with a Master of Arts in Filmmaking in 2008. Back in Germany, she initially worked in documentary film and reporting. As editor for the documentary format 140 Seconds, she was awarded the Grimme Online Award in 2012. In 2014, she made her feature film debut with the haunting social drama Up the Stairs, which premiered at the Hof Film Festival in 2015 and received an honorable mention there. She co-wrote the screenplay for her second feature film, Die Saat, with her husband, actor Hanno Koffler, who also played the lead role, as he did in Treppe aufwärts. Die Saat, which tells the story of the impossibility of social advancement in Germany, had its world premiere in June 2021, opening the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section of the Summer Berlinale. The director went on to win the Audience Award at the Exground Filmfest Wiesbaden, the Hans W. Geißendörfer Prize and the MFG Star Young Director Award, among others. Last year, Mia Maariel Meyer and Katja Benrath were awarded the German Television Prize for directing the ZDF Neo series Push. She also directed three episodes of the internationally cast Netflix series Transatlantic. Mia Maariel Meyer now lives with her husband and child in Berlin.
Mia Maariel Meyer at the Festival:
Thursday, March 19: The Castro Theatre, San Francisco
10:30 AM: 22 Lengths (by invitation only) 102 min. + Q&A
Thomas Prenn
Thomas Prenn is an award-winning actor from South Tyrol, renowned for his intense, transformative performances in European cinema. A graduate of Berlin’s Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, he first gained critical acclaim with the 2018 Tatort episode Damian, earning the Studio Hamburg Best Young Actor Award. Prenn’s career reached a milestone at the 2022 Austrian Film Awards, where he won both Best Actor for the drama Why Not You and Best Supporting Actor for the critically acclaimed Great Freedom. His filmography spans high-profile international projects, including Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, the Netflix series Biohackers, and Tom Lass’s I Am Sophie Scholl. Most recently, he starred in Barbara Albert’s Blind at Heart (2022) and Marie Kreutzer’s Acht (2024).
Thomas Prenn at the Festival:
Friday, March 20: Vogue Theater, San Francisco
7:30 PM: Blind at Heart 136 min. + Q&A – Buy Tickets
Sunday, March 22: Rialto Cinemas® Elmwood, Berkeley
4:45 PM: A Land Within 112 min. + Q&A – Buy Tickets
Charlotte Taschen
Charlotte Taschen is a German-American actress, martial artist, and producer. Born in Köln, Germany, Taschen is currently based in Los Angeles, with secondary residencies in London and Berlin. She holds a black belt in Taekwondo and trains in various other martial arts including Jiu-Jitsu and boxing. Aside from Taschen’s native languages, English and German, she speaks French, Spanish, and some Dutch. On screen, Taschen most recently appears in HBO’s Minx (2024) and the feature film Bad Painter (2025) by Director Albert Oehlen, and starring alongside Udo Kier, with Grace Zabriskie and Kim Gordon in supporting roles. Taschen excels in voice acting and lends her voice to numerous commercials, video games, narrative and dubbing work in the USA and Germany. Her performance in the martial arts short film The Cocktail Party (2021), directed by Jessica Sanders, earned her the Best Actress award at the Fighting Spirit Film Festival.
Charlotte Taschen at the Festival:
Thursday, March 19: The Castro Theatre, San Francisco
3:00 PM: Bad Painter 80 min. – Buy Tickets
Burhan Qurbani
Burhan Qurbani is an acclaimed German director and screenwriter of Afghan descent, celebrated for visually striking, socially conscious cinema that explores identity, migration, and modern history. Born to political refugees, Qurbani studied at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, where his early work earned immediate international recognition. His feature film debut, Shahada (2010), was also his graduation film. It premiered in Competition at the Berlinale and examines the intersection of faith and modern Western life. We Are Young. We Are Strong. (2014), winner of the Bavarian Film Award for Best Screenplay, is a stark account of the 1992 Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots. Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020), his neon-soaked, contemporary reimagining of Döblin’s classic, centers on an undocumented immigrant. The film won the Deutscher Film Prize Best Picture (Silver). No Beast. So Fierce. (2025) is his female-led adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III that premiered as a Berlinale Special Gala. Pushing boundaries through filmic storytelling, Qurbani utilizes a neon-noir aesthetic to champion characters on the margins. He remains one of the most vital and empathetic voices in contemporary German cinema.
Burhan Qurbani at the Festival:
Saturday, March 21: SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Theater, San Francisco
6:15 PM: No Beast. So Fierce. 142 min. + Q&A – Buy Tickets
