Veteran filmmaker Todd Haynes will head the competition jury at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival.

The announcement was made this morning by the festival. In a statement, Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle described Haynes as a “dazzlingly gifted writer and director.”

“His body of work is at once stylistically versatile but also unmistakably his,” Tuttle said. “Ever since his debut feature Poison won the Teddy Award in 1991, the Berlinale has followed and loved his filmmaking, and we are overjoyed to have him join the festival as the President of the International Jury for our 75th edition.”

One of the pioneering voices of 90’s American cinema independent cinema, Haynes made his feature with Poison, an experimental sci-fi flick starring Edith Meeks, Larry Maxwell, Susan Gayle Norman, Scott Renderer, and James Lyons. The film won the queer film prize at the Berlinale, in 1991, and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.