Within the Berlinale Classics section of the 76th Berlinale, the 4K restoration of Geheimnisse einer Seele (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1926) will have its world premiere, accompanied by an innovative interactive musical score.
Secrets of a Soul is one of the earliest films to engage with the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. The film tells the story of a traumatized chemist who develops a phobia of knives and seeks help from a psychoanalyst. It combines expressionist dream sequences with the sober realism of the New Objectivity, marking an early milestone in the cinematic representation of the unconscious.
The new 4K digital restoration was carried out in collaboration with the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung, the Berlinale, the Deutsche Kinemathek, and the public broadcasters ZDF/ARTE. The film will be broadcast on ARTE television in May 2026. The screening will feature a new score by South Korean composer Yongbom Lee, performed by the ensemble Broken Frames Syndicate. The acoustic music will be complemented by electronic sounds generated from the violist’s brain activity, measured through functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and processed in real time using a machine-learning system developed by the Leipzig-based collective aiar.
The restoration was carried out using 35 mm and 16 mm materials sourced from European archives (Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique/CINEMATEK and the German Federal Archives) and the United States (a 16 mm print preserved at the Harvard Film Archive), and was funded by the FFE Film Legacy program.
Under the title Lost in the 90s, the 76th Berlinale celebrates a memorable decade. The program will revisit an era of upheaval, rebellion, and cinematic experimentation. There will be no shortage of films that take us back to the fall of the Berlin Wall, political chaos, the communication revolution brought about by the rise of MTV, and the advent of the digital age. The 1990s flooded screens with unconventional films marked by bold creative freedom and a distinctly inquisitive spirit.
The program includes 22 screenings, along with discussions and parallel events. For the first time, the Retrospective section is collaborating with the Goethe-Institut: beginning in March 2026, five films from the Berlin segment of the program will be screened across the 150 institutes in its global network.
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