Since 2013 the project Visionary Archive has been linking up film research in Berlin, Bissau, Johannesburg, Cairo, and Khartoum. This research uses a wide variety of strategies to ask similar questions: What can a local archive of films contribute to practices of memory and emancipation in the face of social upheavals and processes of oppression? What kinds of (hi)stories are stored in these archives and their films? What processes of revision do we run into when watching this disparate, idiosyncratic, and fragmentary material?

As part of Forum Expanded, there will be a joint presentation of the project on February 11, using sounds and images to performatively repose these questions, all the while providing insight into the practices and methods of the ongoing subprojects: the South African B-Scheme films, made for a black audience from the 1970s to the late ’80s; the lifework of Sudanese filmmaker Gadalla Gubara, which bridges both genres and eras; Revisiting Memory, an archival research project related to periods of transition at the Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre in Cairo; the collection of documentary films from the 1970s that are partly held in Guinea-Bissau; and the collection of films by African filmmakers at the archive of the Arsenal, which is closely linked to the history of the Berlinale’s Forum.

The Forum is showing two of the so-called B-Schemes films: the 1973 gangster film JOE BULLET as well as UMBANGO (THE FEUD), a Western of 1986. Director and producer Tonie van der Merwe will be our guest in Berlin for the screening of his films on February 6. Both films can be seen again on February 14 and 15, presented by the initiator of the B-Schemes project, Darryl Els.

In collaboration with Allianz Kulturstiftung, Forum Expanded presents a series of talks and panels with the title Think:Film No. 3 at Akademie der Künste.

On Saturday February 7th, this year's theme, "To the Sound of the Closing Door", will be discussed in four keynote presentations followed by several panels on the following days. Concluding, on Thursday February 12, the Think:Film Award will be given to a work from the Forum Expanded programme for the second time.

BALIKBAYAAN #1 OVERDEVELOPMENT REDUX III by Kidlat Tahimik by Johannes Holzhausen receives this year's Caligari Award.

The jury members were Maximilian Becker (Aka Filmclub Freiburg), Barbara Fischer-Rittmeyer (Kino im U, Dortmund), Margarethe Wach (FILMDIENST), Nils Daniel Peiler (Curator, Saarbrücken) and Michael Baute (Curator, Berlin). Their statement reads:

"A sensuous film with a media-archeological approach, its montage processes a transformative, self-reflexive dialog using heterogeneous materials. A film that demonstrates how history and its colonial imaginations can be incessantly rewritten, overwritten and redesignated, it is colorful, flamboyant and complexly multi-layered, and both a journey as well as a hybrid of document, fiction and essay. Tahimik's film, which counters the meagerness of the conditions of its production with a richness of playful intelligence, is a dazzling comet of the "Third Cinema" that, after almost 40 years of production time, has finally exploded into the present."

The prize of the Internatioanl Federation of Film Critics for a film in the Forum's programme goes to IL GESTO DELLE MANI (HAND GESTURES) by Francesco Clerici.

A bronze foundry in Milan has been making statues for over 100 years. This affectionate tribute to an ancient handicraft shows step by step how a statue comes into being, a fascinating look at the sweat-inducing everyday life of the factory.

This year's jury was made up of Neil Young (UK), Beat Glur (Switzerland) and Julia Teichmann (Germany).

As a special screening Dominik Graf presents his film THEN IS IT THE END? THE FILM CRITIC MICHAEL ALTHEN at the Delphi Theatre on February 13 for the first time. Graf’s endearing portrait of his friend who died in 2011 explores the considerable effect he had, revels in his love of films and takes an in-depth look at his legacy for filmmakers, critics and cinemagoers.

The film can be seen again on February 15 at Arsenal Cinema.

The Think:Film Award which was presented as part of Forum Expanded for the second time goes to Lukasz Ronduda and Maciej Sobiezczanski for OSKAR DAWICKI IN THE PERFORMER as well as Pierre Huyghe for UNTITLED (HUMAN MASK). Akram Zataari receives a special mention for TWENTY-EIGHT NIGHTS AND A POEM.

The award, established in cooperation with the Allianz Kulturstiftung, honors a work that creatively uses its medium in order to grasp and reflect geopolitical contexts artistically, to broaden the space of aesthetic experience, and to encourage mental shifts of perspective. The award, chosen by a three-member jury, includes travel to and accommodation in Berlin and Cairo, where the selected works will be presented. Jury members were Mohamed Beshir (Cairo), Karim Aïnouz (Berlin), Ala Younis (Amman).