The Berlin film festival has released details of a clutch of new titles in its competition and special sections to join the already announced opening film Hail, Caesar!

Among the films having their world premiere on the Potsdamer Platz is Midnight Special, a thriller by Jeff “Mud” Nichols, which sees the director reunited with regular collaborator Michael Shannon. Shannon, who played a man haunted by apocalyptic visions in Nichols’ 2011 film Take Shelter, here takes the role of a father who goes on the run with his son, whose extrasensory powers make him a target of government agents and extremists.

Also debuting in Berlin will be Genius, the Michael Grandage-directed study of author Thomas Wolfe’s relationship with his editor, starring Jude Law and Colin Firth and based on A Scott Berg’s 1978 biography Max Perkins: Editor of Genius. Meanwhile, Alone in Berlin, based on Hans Fallada’s 1947 novel Every Man Dies Alone about a husband and wife who were executed during the war for anti-Nazi activities, is directed by Vincent Perez and stars Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson.

Berlin has also announced the debut of Zero Days, a new documentary from Going Clear director Alex Gibney, about internet surveillance and cybercrime – not to be confused with another documentary on a similar subject, currently entitled Zero Day, for which Gibney is acting as consulting producer.

Three other documentaries have been picked as special sessions at Berlin. A study of seminal cultural critic John Berger, The Seasons in Quincy, directed by, among others, Colin MacCabe and Tilda Swinton, will have its world premiere; 20 Feet from Stardom director Morgan Neville’s record of the Silk Road project, The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, will have its first European screening; and Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next, which premiered at Toronto, will also be shown.

The Berlin film festival runs from 11 to 21 February.