Lead: Karim Aïnouz’s Rosebush Pruning premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, delivering a deliberately provocative black comedy that tests the limits of taste and genre. Set partly on a Spanish beach and centered on a dysfunctional family recently relocated from New York to Catalonia, the film follows young Edward and his increasingly transgressive circle as relationships and boundaries dissolve. Co-written with Efthimis Filippou and nodding to Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 Fists in the Pocket, the picture has divided viewers for its gleeful cruelty and flamboyant style. Its 95-minute runtime and bold casting — including Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Elle Fanning and Pamela Anderson — make it one of Berlin’s most talked-about entries.
Key Takeaways
- Festival: Rosebush Pruning screened in the Berlin International Film Festival competition in 2026, positioning it among that year’s most discussed premieres.
- Credits: Directed by Karim Aïnouz; screenplay by Aïnouz and Efthimis Filippou, with an explicit inspiration credit to Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket (1965).
- Cast & running time: The ensemble includes Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, Elle Fanning, Tracy Letts and Pamela Anderson; running time is 1 hr 35 mins.
- Tone and style: The film is a confrontational black comedy that mixes pansexual playfulness with deliberate shock tactics, repeatedly foregrounding fashion and performance.
- Distribution: Mubi holds distribution rights, signaling an arthouse release strategy aimed at specialist audiences.
- Performance note: Younger cast members’ fearless work is a notable strength, offsetting the film’s deliberately abrasive humor.
- Themes: Key motifs include family vampirism, sexual fluidity, sartorial identity and the collapse of conventional taste.
Background
Karim Aïnouz has built a reputation for formally ambitious and emotionally intense films; Rosebush Pruning extends that trajectory into more overtly transgressive territory. Efthimis Filippou’s involvement connects the project to the so-called Greek “Weird Wave” of cinema, a movement known for unsettling narratives and deadpan extremity associated with filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos. Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket (1965) is credited as an originating touchstone: that film’s portrait of an anguished, violent family remains a benchmark for domestic disintegration on screen.
The Berlin Competition slot places Rosebush Pruning within a festival tradition that often spotlights challenging work, from formal provocations to politically charged provocateurs. Contemporary arthouse distributors such as Mubi have increasingly served as the commercial home for films that defy mainstream categorization, offering curated release windows and festival-driven marketing. In that ecosystem, a polarizing, stylistically bold title can generate cultural conversation even without broad mainstream appeal.
Main Event
The film opens on a sun-drenched Spanish shore, where Edward (Callum Turner) — urbane, fashion-obsessed and sexually candid — takes a newcomer, George, under his wing. That opening sequence establishes a linguistic and visual whip-smartness: narration, voiceover lines and costume function as parallel means of social instruction. From the outset the camera revels in clothing details and staged poses, treating wardrobe changes as narrative beats as much as character exposition.
We soon meet Edward’s family: a blind widower father played by Tracy Letts and siblings Jack (Jamie Bell), Robert (Lukas Gage) and Anna (Riley Keough). Their backstory — relocation from New York to Catalonia after the mother’s violent death — is presented with a mixture of deadpan absurdity and grotesque humor. The household’s erotic entanglements are foregrounded, especially a near-incestuous fixation on Jack that fuels much of the plot’s escalating chaos.
When Jack brings Martha (Elle Fanning), a classically trained guitarist and outwardly conventional figure, into the household, her presence becomes the narrative fulcrum: she is alternately reviled and fetishized by the family. Anna’s campaign to sabotage the relationship is played for black comedy, and Keough’s performance is deliberately lascivious and unflinching. The film consistently converts everyday intimacy into spectacle, from rituals of grooming to scenes of physical mutilation and fetish play, asking audiences to decide whether they are witnessing satire, horror or something in between.
Jack’s arc — an attempt to escape a family that functions like a vampiric collective — structures the latter stages of the film. His own impulses are far from conventional: the script aligns him with obsessions that blur the lines between self-harm and transgression. Throughout, Elle Fanning’s character serves as a viewer surrogate, repeatedly registering shock and disbelief as the house’s routines intensify.
Analysis & Implications
Stylistically, Rosebush Pruning trades in sartorial excess and sharply composed tableaux, leaning heavily on costume as character psychology. Aïnouz and Filippou use clothing, song and choreographed group behavior to transform intimate moments into public spectacle. That approach connects the film to a lineage of European transgressive cinema, but its tonal mixture — equal parts dark farce and grotesque melodrama — sets it apart from straightforward heirs like early Almodóvar or Dogtooth-era Greek projects.
Culturally, the film interrogates contemporary fluidity around gender and desire while refusing tidy moral framing. By depicting a household where terms like “gay” and “straight” are treated as irrelevant, the script insists on sexual identity as performative and situational. This can be read as a deliberate artistic provocation: an attempt to force viewers out of categorical comfort into an aesthetic and ethical confrontation.
Festival reception will shape the film’s afterlife. In Berlin, where critics and cinephiles prize formal daring, Rosebush Pruning’s polarizing jokes and staged cruelty can generate prestige even as they limit mainstream reach. With Mubi attached, the film is poised for curated streaming and festival-driven theatrical windows rather than a wide commercial run — a distribution trajectory common for boundary-pushing arthouse titles.
Reactions & Quotes
Initial critical response has been split between admiration for the film’s bravado and discomfort with its excesses. Supporters point to the cast’s commitment and the film’s aesthetic assurance; detractors question whether provocation outweighs purpose.
“Bad-taste riot.”
Deadline (review excerpt)
The line below is an example of the film’s sudden, unsettling frankness and is heard in an early voiceover that sets the film’s tone.
“He’s the kind of guy I’d like to see naked.”
Rosebush Pruning (voiceover)
Unconfirmed
- Reports that the mother’s death by wolves is factual on set rather than a fictional plot device are unverified and appear to be a narrative element rather than an off-screen incident.
- No independent confirmation has emerged about any on-set controversies or production incidents tied to the film; press accounts to date focus on content and critical response.
Bottom Line
Rosebush Pruning is a deliberately divisive work: sumptuous in design, relentless in transgression and anchored by a daring young ensemble. It will appeal to viewers who seek cinema that deliberately unsettles conventional taste and challenges categorical reading of desire. For others, its aesthetic cruelty and repeated provocations will feel gratuitous.
As a Berlin Competition title with Mubi distribution, the film is likely to become a touchstone in conversations about the limits and responsibilities of contemporary arthouse provocation. Whether it endures as a significant work in Aïnouz’s filmography will depend on how audiences and critics weigh its formal confidence against its moral provocations.