MUBI has released a first look clip from Rosebush Pruning, the latest feature by director Karim Aïnouz, ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival. The film marks Aïnouz’s newest collaboration with the global distributor, streaming service, and production company.
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Rosebush Pruning enters the Berlinale Competition with a cast that brings together Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, Elena Anaya, Tracy Letts, Elle Fanning, and Pamela Anderson. The ensemble reflects the film’s focus on a closed family system, one defined by privilege, proximity, and emotional dependency.
Set in an opulent villa beneath the Catalonian sun, the film follows American siblings Jack, Ed, Anna, and Robert as they retreat into isolation, shielded by inherited wealth and a life detached from external demands. Their days unfold within a narrow emotional orbit shaped by indulgence, proximity, and a refusal to engage with the needs of their blind father. The siblings seek affirmation through each other and through their carefully curated designer wardrobes, using surface control as a substitute for emotional clarity.
Jack, the eldest sibling and central force within the family, anchors this fragile balance. His decision to move in with his girlfriend, Martha, disrupts the arrangement that has kept the family intact. With Jack’s departure, long-standing bonds fracture, and the internal logic that governed the household begins to fail. Ed responds to this rupture by probing into the circumstances surrounding their mother’s death, opening a chain of revelations that none of them have prepared to face.
As Ed’s investigation advances, buried truths surface, and generational lies lose their grip. The structure that once held the family together starts to erode, exposing the emotional cost of their shared denial. The villa, once a site of comfort and insulation, becomes a pressure chamber where unresolved grief, control, and dependency collide.
Aïnouz frames Rosebush Pruning as a contemporary satire that examines the absurdity of the traditional patriarchal family. The film directs its focus toward power, inheritance, and the emotional damage sustained within closed systems that resist accountability. With its premiere set for Berlin, Rosebush Pruning enters the festival as a Competition title contending for the Golden Bear. Following its debut at the Berlinale, Rosebush Pruning will release in the UK and Ireland later this year.
