In the organizer's words:

Tickets are available now available in our website. Reserve soon, seating is limited. https://sinematranstopia.com/en/topias/tokyo-godfathers
! The doors open one hour before the screenings.

SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
Lindowerstr. 20/22
Haus C
13347 Berlin

Directions
U6 S + U Wedding
S41, S42
Bus: 120, 147, N6, N20

Followed by a poetry reading by Ari.

Christmas films so often rely on saccharine sweet tropes around family and community; Satoshi Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers flirts with these tropes before roundly dismantling them through a gritty emotionality that reveals the messiness of family dynamics. Fantastical in its coincidental meetings, unflinching its portrayals of parental failings, and tender in its characters’ bids for redemption, Tokyo Godfathers is the perfect anti-Christmas Christmas film.

“As a rule, I don’t really care for Christmas films. I was saturated in the US’s overtly capitalist interpretation of the holiday which is masked by a paper-thin veneer of family values. As a queer immigrant, found family in a new country is intense, sometimes painful, and profoundly beautiful. This film doesn’t shy away from the painful parts of family that so many other films gloss over. The tender treatment of a trans character whose gender identity isn’t all encompassing is refreshing in a way that trans people like myself crave in cinema.” (Ari Cottingham)

Ari Cottingham is a queer Afro-Latine poet, performance artist, and service industry worker. They have published and performed widely, and in 2025 they were the recipient of a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship. Whilst working as part of the bar and Meyhane team at SINEMA, Ari also organizes Berlin Spoken Word, a weekly community open mic that, this December, celebrates a decade of enduring the Berlin arts scene.