I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING
september 8, Tue Kirill & Friends Berlin Festival
CUBIX am Alexanderplatz
20:00
Director – Clio Barnard
United Kingdom / France / USA, 2026
Drama
Duration: 109 min.
Language: English, with English subtitles
United Kingdom / France / USA, 2026
Drama
Duration: 109 min.
Language: English, with English subtitles
One of the standout discoveries of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, the film was presented in Directors’ Fortnight. Directed by Clio Barnard, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British cinema, it tells the story of five friends who grew up together in Birmingham.
Approaching their thirties, they are beginning to realize that life has not unfolded quite as they had imagined. As old certainties disappear and the city around them changes, they struggle to hold on to friendship, hope, and a sense of belonging.
Winner of the Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning is a moving portrait of a generation coming to terms with adulthood, loss, and the passing of time.
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AUTHORS
DIRECTOR
Clio Barnard
Responses
With warmth and heartfelt passion, and a quintet of outstanding performances from young actors shot in looming closeup for so much of the time, Clio Barnard has created an absorbing and moving social-realist picture.
Featuring a superb ensemble cast, it’s grounded by a gritty, relatable authenticity that pushes it past its more didactic moments.
It achieves the enduring power of a folk ballad.
A melancholy torch song to the stories that play out beneath our changing skylines.
From Birmingham estates to the Croisette, Clio Barnard’s stirring drama explores friendship, class and the crushing realities of modern Britain.