The selection team
Asja Makarević (*1983) currently works as post-doctoral fellow in the research programme “AGE-C Aging and Gender in European Cinema” at Goethe University Frankfurt, where she obtained her PhD degree. Between 2009 and 2017, Asja managed Talents Sarajevo, the Sarajevo Film Festival’s networking and training platform for emerging film professionals from Southeast Europe and Southern Caucasus. Asja was a recipient of the University of Amsterdam Merit Scholarship and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Scholarship.
Carolin Weidner (*1989) is a freelance journalist and curator. She approaches the topics of film and cinema from various perspectives, writing traditional reviews, for example for the taz and Perlentaucher, but also developing programs for festivals. Since 2017, she has been part of the selection committee of DOK Leipzig. She is interested in film history and the supposedly deviant, leads writing workshops and teaches.
Christiane Büchner (*1965) is a filmmaker, illustrator and film producer from Cologne. Her films tell stories about living together: about neighborhoods, family, work and property. She is particularly interested in documentary forms and how they can be extended in other media. Many years she was a member of the selection committee of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
Fabian Tietke (*1981) is a film critic, film historian and programmer. His interests include documentary forms and animated film, film and social movements, Italian and Chinese film production and history, and film from the Mena region. He also writes for a number of print and online media (including taz, Tagesspiegel, Cargo, Perlentaucher, Filmdienst).
Feven Haile (*1995) is currently completing her master’s degree, while also working as a freelance film curator. She has worked in various roles for film festivals in the Rhine-Main area. One of her interests lies in archival work. She is temporarily based in London to work at the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive.
Irina Bondas (*1985) studied interpreting and political science in Leipzig and Edinburgh and works as a freelance conference interpreter and translator as well as a lecturer, moderator and cultural mediator in Berlin. She has researched translation in the theater and works for numerous international festivals and cultural institutions.
Lisabona Rahman (*1976) is a freelance consultant and programmer currently based in Berlin. She has been creating archival film screening programs for festivals, archives and galleries. Her works were conceived and shown with the support of different institutions such as the Arsenal Institut in Berlin, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, Film Archive Public Organization of Thailand and rubanah underground hub Jakarta.
The professional beginnings of Forum’s programming and festival manager Anna Hoffmann (*1962) took place in the cinema. Whether at the municipal cinema Metropolis in Hamburg or later in her festival work, the focal point was always connecting films with an audience. For her, the appeal of working for the Berlinale Forum section lies in offering a platform for films that are willing to take risks and engage in discourse within one of the largest film festivals in the world and bringing filmmakers, industry professionals and Berlin audiences into a conversation.
