"The Stars Down to Earth": The search for ways to enable art to deal with an increasingly intangible reality provides an essential common ground between this year's selected works. Returning one’s gaze to earth seems more necessary than ever before. But how can film be used to capture something real when that concept seems increasingly hard to grasp? The films and installations of the 12th Forum Expanded approach this question by attempting both to look and listen as closely as possible. One person who has created a cinematographic oeuvre on the basis of these questions since the 1970s is James Benning. This year, he is represented by the three-channel installation UNTITLED FRAGMENTS. Purple colors emanate from the centre of the exhibition: Joe Namy's installation PURPLE, BODIES IN TRANSLATION – PART II OF A YELLOW MEMORY FROM THE YELLOW AGE examines beyond visual representation on the audio track the question of which details are lost in translation and what can ensue between subtitles and the image.
In her video installation TWELVE, Jeamin Cha painstakingly reconstructs the real politics of the secret annual tariff negotiations between Korean employers and employee associations. In WUTHARR, SALTWATER DREAMS, the Karrabing Film Collective shows in three versions of the same story that different perspectives of a problem can lead to complementary, rather than contradictory, solutions.
In CONSTRUCTED FUTURES: HARET HREIK, the Berlin-based artist Sandra Schäfer examines urban planning and reconstruction in Beirut and the ideologies contained within these. RIWAQ, an independent organization dedicated to documenting and rehabilitating architectural heritage in the West Bank and Gaza, presents the multimedia installation BAWABET YAFA, which observes the environment around the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem through early photography and also more precisely through the memories of one individual. Mohanad Yaqubi was also involved in the making of this installation. His film OFF FRAME AKA REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY, which is based on productions by the Palestinian Film Unit, is also in the program.
A Forum film from last year gave rise to IZADORA (LISTENING TO VERSIONS OF HERSELF): In And-Ek Ghes by Colorado Velcu and Philip Scheffner we got to know the girl Izadora as the daughter of Colorado. Now we see her as a young woman in an installation that Merle Kröger and Philip Scheffner co-worked upon. One of this year's Forum films, EL MAR LA MAR by J.P. Sniadecki and Joshua Bonnetta, will be complemented by the sound installation LAGO by Joshua Bonnetta at the Marshall McLuhan Salon of the Canadian Embassy.
SAVVY Contemporary is also with us this year and will be presenting an installation by the filmmaker and artist Amos Gitai in its space.
The Stars Down to Earth: How do gods and goddesses behave in the volatility of today's world when they come down to earth as people? The program will open with AAPOTHKALIN TRIKALIKA by Ashish Avikunthak. In STUDIES ON THE ECOLOGY OF DRAMA, Eija-Liisa Ahtila examines ways of finding a film picture beyond cinematographic anthropocentrism, by diverting the gaze from the people and onto their surroundings. Sharon Lockhart takes a similar approach in her film Rudzienko, which was made with girls at a youth establishment for social therapy in the Polish city that gave the film its title. Łukasz Ronduda continues the series of films which showcase artists that he launched in 2015, with SERCE MIŁOŚCI – DIRECTOR’S CUT about Wojciech Bąkowski and Zuzanna Bartoszek.
SEIF TAGREEBY by Mahmoud Lotfy is the phantasmagoric search for the original version of an Egyptian film from the 1980s whose prints were all confiscated for unknown reasons.
In Gina Seidl's debut, SPIN, a filmic rapprochement to circular motion, we hear the voice of the actress Susanne Sachsse. We also see her in a new work by Bruce LaBruce: She will perform the CONFESSIONS OF AN ACTRESS live on stage before both screenings of ULRIKE'S BRAIN.
Think:Film No. 5 will take place on one day only in the cupola hall of the silent green Kulturquartier: "Archival Constellations" presents archive projects that were lost in oblivion because of their geopolitical or institutional location, or never even happened, and are thus connected through this situation with other places or institutions. There will be contributions by Filipa César and Sana Na N’Hada, Didi Cheeka, Harun Farocki Institut, Amos Gitai, K7, Karrabing Film Collective, Oleksiy Radynski, Lisabona Rahman and Edwin, Reem Shilleh and Mohanad Yaqubi, Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk as well as Vaginal Davis.
With: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Haig Aivazian, Graeme Arnfield & Sasha Litvintseva, Lina Attalah & Mohamed A. Gawad, Ashish Avikunthak, Yael Bartana, James Benning, Joshua Bonnetta, Eliane Esther Bots, Bruce -LaBruce, Duncan Campbell, Jeamin Cha, Mike Crane, Vaginal Davis, Anja Dornieden & Juan David González Monroy, Noam Enbar, Chris Gehman, Amos Gitai, Karø Goldt, Eva C. Heldmann, Laura Horelli, Oliver Husain, Ken Jacobs, Marc Downie & Paul Kaiser with Flo & Ken Jacobs, Islam Kamal & Marouan Omara, Karrabing Film Collective, Daniel Kötter, Merle Kröger, Izadora Nistor & Philip Scheffner, Sharon Lockhart, Mahmoud Lotfy, Bernd Lützeler, Peter Miller, Joe Namy, Rawane Nassif, Tomonari Nishikawa, Łukasz Ronduda, Susanne Sachsse, Sandra Schäfer, Maya Schweizer, Ginan Seidl, Fern Silva, Oraib Toukan, Katrin Winkler, Mohanad Yaqubi.
(Stefanie Schulte Strathaus)
