Berlinale Forum and Forum Expanded: Films and Discussions

Screenings and Discussions as part of the 70. Berlinale

In 2020, Berlinale Forum and Berlinale Forum Expanded will be using the Kuppelhalle at silent green Kulturquartier as a screening venue for the second time. 2020 is a year of many changes. The Berlinale Forum has a new section head in the form of Cristina Nord and a new selection procedure, with many new faces among the advisors and in the selection committee. At the same time, it’s a year in which tradition is of particularly great importance: this independent section of the Berlinale, organised by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

This intermeshing of old and new, the existing and the pioneering, equally forms a leitmotif running through the selection. Many of the 35 films in this year’s programme – 28 of which are world premieres – are characterised by how they look for ways to mediate between past and present. This applies in spades to "EL TANGO DEL VIUDO y su espejo deformante" ("THE TANGO OF THE WIDOWER and Its Distorting Mirror") by Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento, which opens this year’s Forum. Ruiz shot the material in Chile in 1967, but was unable to complete it before going into exile in 1973. Editor, director and Ruiz’s widow Valeria Sarmiento has now transformed it into a finished film via various elaborate techniques. The film experiments with its own temporality in wonderfully idiosyncratic fashion, as it encompasses the half-century since it was originally shot and allows its plot to run forwards and backwards; in the latter case, quite literally.

Other films – such as Clarissa Thieme’s "Was bleibt I Šta ostaje I What remains / Re-visited", Radu Jude’s "Tipografic majuscul (Uppercase Print)" or Jonathan Perel’s "Responsabilidad empresarial (Corporate Accountability)" – raise the question of how the political fault lines of recent history can be translated into film images and try out essayistic forms in the process. "Ouvertures", made by a collective surrounding directors Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf, looks back at the Haitian revolution and the aporias of the Enlightenment. Paula Gaitán’s more than four-hour "Luz nos trópicos (Light in the Tropics)" gallops between different eras like a wild horse, culminating in brilliant tribute to the forests and rivers of North and South America and the Indigenous peoples that live there. This forges links to further films in the programme which explore the increasingly precarious relationship between humans and their environment, such as Viera Čákanyová’s "FREM" or Lois Patiño’s "Lúa vermella (Red Moon Tide)".

Screenings at Werkstattkino@silent green:

Section Berlinale Forum Expanded

Saturday, February 22nd, 2 pm
Victoria
Belgium
by Sofie Benoot, Liesbeth De Ceulaer, Isabelle Tollenaere
World premiere

Saturday, February 22nd, 8 pm
Traverser (After the Crossing)
France / Burkina Faso / Belgium
by Joël Richmond Mathieu Akafou
World premiere

Sunday, February 23rd, 8 pm
The Viewing Booth
Israel / USA
by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz
International premiere

Monday, February 24th, 2 pm
Was bleibt I Šta ostaje I What remains I Re-visited
Germany / Austria / Bosnia and Herzegovina
by Clarissa Thieme
World premiere

Monday, February 24th, 8 pm
Responsabilidad empresarial (Corporate Accountability)
Argentina
by Jonathan Perel
World premiere

Tuesday, February 25th, 8 pm
Grève ou crève (Strike or Die)
France
by Jonathan Rescigno
World premiere

Wednesday, February 26th, 8 pm
Maggie’s Farm
USA
by James Benning
World premiere

Friday, February 28, 3 pm
Gli appunti di Anna Azzori / Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori / A Mirror that Travels through Time)
Austria / Germany / France
by Constanze Ruhm
World premiere

Friday, February 28th, 5 pm
Generations
USA
by Lynne Siefert
World premiere

Saturday, February 29th, 3 pm
Entre perro y lobo
Cuba / Spain
by Irene Gutiérrez
World premiere

Saturday, February 29th, 5 pm
EL TANGO DEL VIUDO y su espejo deformante (THE TANGO OF THE WIDOWER And Its Distorting Mirror)
Chile
by Raúl Ruiz, Valeria Sarmiento
World premiere

Saturday, February 29th, 7 pm
Kunst kommt aus dem Schnabel wie er gewachsen ist (Art Comes from the Beak the Way It Has Grown)
Germany
by Sabine Herpich
World premiere

Sunday, March 1st, 3 pm Kama fissamaa' kathalika ala al-ard (As Above So Below)
Lebanon
by Sarah Francis
World premiere

Sunday, March 1st, 7.30 pm
Anne at 13,000 ft
Canada / USA
by Kazik Radwanski
European premiere

Section Berlinale Forum Expanded

Friday, February 21st, 3 pm
Program 1
Doublewide
by Jenny Perlin
USA
World premiere

The Whole Shebang
by Ken Jacobs
USA

Citizens of the Cosmos
by Anton Vidokle
USA / Japan / Ukraine

Friday, February 21st, 5.30 pm
Program 3
Télé Réalité
by Lucile Desamory, Glodie Mubikay, Gustave Fundi
Belgium / Germany / Demokratic Republic of the Congo
World premiere

Friday, February 21st, 8.30 pm
Program 4
Al-Maw’oud (The Promised)
by Ahmed Elghoneimy
Egypt
World premiere

Akiya
by Jonna Kina
Finland / Japan / USA
World premiere

Al-Houbut (The Landing)
by Akram Zaatari
Lebanon / United Arab Emirates

Saturday, February 22nd, 5 pm
Program 2
Moazzam ma yalla haqeqy (Most of What Follows Is True)
by Maged Nader
Egypt
World premiere

Her Name Was Europa
by Anja Dornieden, Juan David González Monroy
Germany
World premiere

Sunday, February 23rd, 2 pm
Program 6
Jíibie
by Laura Huertas Millán
Colombia / France

Jogos Dirigidos (Directed Games)
by Jonathas de Andrade
Brazil

Apiyemiyekî?
by Ana Vaz
Brazil / France / Netherlands/ Portugal

Sunday, February 23rd, 5 pm
Program 5
(Outros) Fundamentos ((Other) Foundations)
by Aline Motta
Brazil

Tatsuniya II
by Rahima Gambo
Nigeria

Vaga Carne (Dazed Flesh)
by Grace Passô, Ricardo Alves Jr.
Brasilien

Monday, February 24th, 5 pm
Program 8
letter to a friend
by Emily Jacir
Palestine

Tuesday, February 25th, 2 pm
Program 10
Expedition Content
by Ernst Karel, Veronika Kusumaryati
USA
World premiere

Tuesday, February 25th, 5 pm
Program 7
Untitled Sequence of Gaps
by Vika Kirchenbauer
Germany
World premiere

Matata
by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo
Demokratic Republic of the Congo / USA / Netherlands

Wednesday, February 26th, 2 pm
Program 12
Purple Sea (Das Purpurmeer)
by Amel Alzakout, Khaled Abdulwahed
Germany
World premiere

Wednesday, February 26th, 5 pm
Program 11
Abstracted / Family
by Koki Tanaka
Japan
World premiere

Friday, February 28th, 9 pm
Program 13
Born of the * * * : On Zarathustra’s Going Under from Cairo to Oran
by Ayreen Anastas, Rene Gabri
Palestine / USA
World premiere