Portuguese filmmaker Sandro Aguilar (*1974) is currently the guest of the DAAD's Berlin Artists' Program. His mainly short films lead the viewer into a mysterious, dark universe. They are idiosyncratically narrated micro-fictions characterized by carefully composed shots, virtuoso work with light and dark, blurred images and reflections and elaborate sound design. Almost wordlessly and extending beyond any sort of narrative logic, a dreamlike, mysterious and often disturbing atmosphere is created purely via the films' visual and acoustic elements. The characters are surrounded by emptiness and solitude – as too in Aguilar's feature A ZONA (Uprise, 2008), in which a man visiting his dying father in hospital meets a panicky pregnant woman who survived the car accident in which her husband died. (29. & 30.8.)

One day in the life of Soad, who lives with her mother and bed-ridden father on the outskirts of Cairo. While bright sunlight and the sounds of the city can be made out behind the half-closed shutters, everything in the flat exudes the smell of old age, sickness and stagnation. Her mother works nights in a hospital and has barely any energy to spare during the day. Soad too is no longer young, having resigned herself to caring for her incapacitated father and putting her own life on hold. The camera patiently follows her movements and daily activities that have become routine, capturing her frustration as well as moments of great tenderness. Hala Lotfy’s impressive debut focuses on the relationship between light and shadow, within and without, life and death. Coming Forth by Day, the idea of emerging into light, is the literal translation of the title of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Soad’s longing is palpably directed outside. But when she leaves the flat in the evening and wanders alone through Cairo by night, it becomes clear just how far she has already distanced herself from her own needs. And yet at the end of the night begins a new day that may still bring change.

A studio. A man and a woman. Moving images on the screen, which he comments on, spurred on by her questions. All the footage was shot from the window of a flat: views of the street, the metro line running above it, the canal, into the windows of the buildings opposite. The flat belongs to the man’s lover, the man is a guest, spending his nights there but never his days. By the canal, young men from Afghanistan set up makeshift shelters as the man looks on, developing increasing sympathy for them. The seasons change, winter, spring, summer. Actress Eva Truffaut and director Vincent Dieutre are talking about love. The tone of their conversation is subdued, little more than a whisper. Although the camera’s gaze is fixed on the world beyond the window, it’s also about what’s behind it. The noises from outside mix with the tones from within. Simon, the lover, a trade-unionist and civil rights activist plays the piano. For Dieutre, he was a hero. “Simon taught me again what compassion is”. The relationship is over, he talks about him in the past tense, tenderly and full of respect. It’s just the key to Simon’s apartment at Paris metro station Jaurès that he never owned. (Berlinale Forum catalogue; Christoph Terhechte)

JAURÈS by Vincent Dieutre can be seen in selected cinemas from 8 August. arsenal distribution is releasing the film which received its world premiere in last year's Forum program. Also playing in selected cinemas is Nicolas Wackerbarth's HALBSCHATTEN from this year's Forum program.

In presenting Luchino Visconti's fourth film SENSO (Italy 1954) on July 21, Vaginal Davis isn't just showing the Italian director's first film in color, but also the first work in his oeuvre that connects his passion for opera and theatre to film in special fashion. SENSO is set at the time of the Austrian occupation of Italy and tells the story of an affair between an Italian contessa and an Austrian lieutenant. "This romantic intrigue seared in the thunder and lightning of passion takes place within a framework of baroque decor decked out in lavishly brilliant colors. An admirable sense of visual composition and color harmonics makes itself felt in every new shot." (Gregor/Patalas: Geschichte des modernen Films)

"These films have to be watched with an audience," writes Frieda Grafe in a text about John Ford. "Both with those for whom they were made and those who place themselves above their alleged sentimentality and simplicity, for they have never learnt to see form as a prerequisite for content." With so much time having passed, it doesn't get any easier to imagine the sort of audiences for whom John Ford made his films. One thing is for certain though: the second and middle part of the retrospective of Frieda Grafe's thirty favorite films is more American than either of the others (the first part took place in April, with the third to follow from 30.10-3.11.): Ford and Lubitsch, Corman and Mankiewicz, Leisen and Walters. In 1995, film critic and author Frieda Grafe (1934–2002) compiled a list of her favorite 30 films for the magazine Steadycam. It included works made between 1926 and 1986, some of which, such as films by Mizoguchi, Godard and Mankiewicz, were to be expected, whereas other choices were more surprising, such as works by Pagnol, Barnet, Capra, or Langdon's silent movie "The Strong Man" and Roger Corman's "Little Shop of Horrors", the latter of which was shot in just one and a half days. It is the American films showing in June in particular for which music forms the easiest point of entry; it is here that the intention behind Grafe's list comes into sharpest focus. As in April already, all ten films will be introduced by the authors who have written texts on the films for the book being published by Brinkmann & Bose at the same time.

A STRANGER (OBRANA I ZAŠTITA) and CIRCLES (KRUGOVI), both of which were shown in this year's Forum program, are the main winners of the Pula Film Festival in Croatia. Srdan Golubović's CIRCLES, a co-produktion from Serbia, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia and France, received the main prize as well as 'best director' and 'best leading act' in the co-productions section of the national competition. The Croatian film A STRANGER by Bobo Jelčić was awarded 'best film' of the national competition as well as prizes for 'best director', 'best screenplay', 'best male and female leading act', 'best camera' and 'best art direction'. In addition, the film was given the main prize by the Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean (FEDORA) Jury.

The connection between music and film goes all the way back the start of cinematography. Alongside the film narrator, the music that accompanied early film screenings formed an integral part of the cinema experience, a fascinating relationship that continues this day. This month's Magical History Tour draws on various examples to present different positions within the comprehensive subject of "Music in Film", with portraits of musicians or musical portraits, (original) film compositions, concert films, music staged with cinematic means, sampled soundtracks and musicals from off the beaten track all providing insights into the meaning and function of music in cinema.