The summer Tarkovsky retrospective is a tradition that has grown dear both to us and our audiences for more than 25 years now. In July and August, we are showing the seven feature films and one mid-length graduation film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986), whose monumental oeuvre exerts a lasting fascination.

We are showing the film KATOK I SKRIPKA (The Steamroller and the Violin, USSR 1960), with which Tarkovsky graduated from the state film school, together with his last film OFFRET (The Sacrifice, Sweden, France 1986, 8.7. & 26.8.). KATOK I SKRIPKA shows one day in the life of the thoughtful Sasha, who prefers his violin to playing football, leading his schoolmates to mock him. A solitary, isolated island forms the setting for OFFRET: 50-year-old Alexander's birthday celebrations are in full swing when news of an atomic strike stops the party guests in their tracks. Tarkovsky's vision employs striking images and dialogue to connect a poetic film language with a philosophical religious discourse.

HAVARIE by Philip Scheffner has received a Special Mention at Festival International de Cinéma Marseille, FID.

The film which premiered in this year's Forum progamme is a three-minute video clip of a tiny dinghy floating in the Mediterranean extended to feature-length. The coastguard's radio broadcasts, the accounts of those possibly on the boat and the hobby filmmaker each leave their mark on the voiceover.

Unknown Pleasures #8 is showcasing independent US films which consistently reveal an alternative insight into filmmaking, in a varied and adventurous manner. These are screening in Berlin for the first time. This year, Frederick Wiseman's IN JACKSON HEIGHTS paves the way for our focus on documentary works. In his 40th film, the director examines one of the liveliest areas of New York, one whose identity is under threat because of gentrification. The film is representative of many in this year's program not only because of its documentary form, but also because of its passion for the people in front of the camera. One question seems to be particularly important: How can films capture and depict our life without losing their vitality, without becoming trapped in a bubble that has nothing to do with our life? The answer can not only come from the (obvious) documentary form but also from two alternatives offered by these films - the return to history (based on a true story) and (auto)biography. In his new feature film EXPERIMENTER, Michael Almereyda looks at the life of Stanley Milgram and his psychological experiments on people's willingness to obey. Almereyda avoids the common conventions used in historical film by anchoring the film between abstraction and artificiality, having Milgram appear as a contemplative narrator of his own life, soberly commenting on contemporary events around him, while looking straight into the camera. Travis Wilkerson's essay film MACHINE GUN OR TYPEWRITER also brings together contemporary events - in this case, the disempowerment of the trade unions in Los Angeles and the Occupy movement - with the character of a narrator. Hidden behind a big microphone, Wilkerson uses the form of a radio program to tell a (fictional) love story.