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).

As part of Forum Expanded Think:Film No.3 both Akram Zaatari and Kidlat Tahimik will be discussing their works in depth on February 12 at Akademie der Künste. Zaatari presents his film TWENTY-EIGHT NIGHTS AND A POEM in the Forum programme, Kidlat Tahimik BALIKBAYAAN #1 OVERDEVELOPMENT REDUX III. The talk between Christa Blümlinger and Akram Zataari takes place at noon, followed by the discussion between Kidlat Tahimik and Tilman Baumgärtel at 1pm.

A panel discussion entitled "Localizing Cinema" at 6pm addresses the question of the meaning of local cinemas today. Participants are Darryl Els, Claudia Engelhardt, Andrea Kuhn and Tamer El-Said. Moderation: Florian Wüst.

Besides film historian Naum Kleiman, director Marcel Ophüls will be awarded a Berlinale Camera this year. Marcel Ophüls is one of the world’s most important contemporary filmmakers and chroniclers, and a proponent of critical remembrance. In his documentary works, he has often focussed on topics related to National Socialism and sought to trace the roots of totalitarianism. In 1989 Marcel Ophüls presented HOTEL TERMINUS - LEBEN UND ZEIT DES KLAUS BARBIE (HOTEL TERMINUS: THE LIFE AND TIME OF KLAUS BARBIE), the story of Lyon’s local Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, in the Forum programme. Among many other awards, the film won the Peace Film Prize and the Academy Award for Best Documentary. In 1991, Ophüls was again invited to participate in the Forum with NOVEMBER DAYS (NOVEMBERTAGE – STIMMEN UND WEGE). Shot one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he explores the reactions and opinions of, for instance, ordinary citizens whom he discovered in footage from November 9, 1989. The last film he presented in the Forum was in 1995: VEILLÉES D'ARMES (THE TROUBLE WE'VE SEEN), in which he criticizes the coverage of war in the media.

In "The Memory of Justice" (1976) Marcel Ophüls interviews some of the accused at the Nuremberg Trials, veterans of the Vietnam War and survivors of the Algerian War of Independence. In doing so, he explores their awareness of guilt and responsibility. To celebrate the Berlinale Camera for Marcel Ophüls, the festival will screen this nearly five-hour monumental work, which has been restored for its premiere at the Berlinale by the Academy Film Archive in association with Paramount Pictures and The Film Foundation, with support from Material World Charitable Foundation, Righteous Persons Foundation, and The Film Foundation.

Two films from the programme "Asynchronous. Documentaries and experimental films on the Holocaust. From the collection of the Arsenal" will be presented as part of this year's Forum programme: HA'MAKAH HA'SHMONIM VE'AHAT (THE 81ST BLOW) by David Bergman, Haim Gouri, Jacques Ehrlich, Miriam Novitch and Zvi Shner (Israel 1977) as well as ME'KIVUN HA'YAAR (OUT OF THE FOREST) by Limor Pinhasov Ben Yosef and Yaron Kaftoroi Ben Yosef (Israel 2003). Both films had received their German premieres as part of the Forum. In the context of the "Asynchronous" projects they have now been digitized.

Composer Joseph Marchaim and Meir Russo of the Jerusalem Cinematheque will be presenting HA'MAKAH HA'SHMONIM VE'AHAT on February 11. The directors of ME'KIVUN HA'YAAR, Limor Pinhasov Ben Yosef and Yaron Kaftoroi Ben Yosef, will be discussing their film after the screenings on February 12 and 15.

Flora Gomes’sensationalfeature film debut"Mortu Nega" (1988) was long considered considered the beginning of cinema in Guinea-Bissau, and the director has remained one of the industry's most important actors. His early work as a documentarist of the Guinean liberation struggle is less known - it is a collective film oeuvre interwoven with the decolonization process that has come back into focus thanks to Arsenal's"Visionary Archive"project. (Forum Expanded panel at the Berlinale on 11.2). The cinema evening on 17.2 gives an opportunity to see and discuss two films with Flora Gomes: his feature film PO DI SANGUI (1996) about an exodus from a drought-threatened village community, and the last film by the Senegalese visionary of cinema Djibril Diop Mambéty - LA PETITE VENDEUSE DE SOLEIL (1999). (mhg, th) (17.2.)