Mixed Feelings: Empathy for the Monster in Genre

Berlinale Talents welcomes back director alumni Hanna Bergholm ("Nightborn") and Edwin ("Sleep No More") who present their new films in Competition and Berlinale Special, respectively. Working within horror, fantasy, and body-focused narratives, both directors explore how genre cinema can evoke empathy by challenging audiences through physical and emotional vulnerability. Drawing from their differing cultural backgrounds in Indonesia and Finland and their storytelling traditions, Edwin and Hanna Bergholm reflect on genre cinema as a means of transformation, where disorder, fear, and body horror reveal social pressures, repression, and desire. Their exchange considers this aesthetic not as spectacle, but as a language that conveys intimacy and unease, using discomfort to challenge norms, destabilize certainty, and invite deeper emotional engagement. Together, they frame genre cinema as a radical tool for reflection, insisting on confusion as a path toward sensitivity and awareness.