The 19th Berlin and Potsdam Jewish Film Festival arrives in typically varied form: 33 films showing at six different locations and a large number of guests and discussions provide insights into different areas of Jewish experience

Terrence Malick (*1943) is a singular figure within the American film industry, an auteur par excellence who writes his own scripts, is uncompromising in his refusal to take on contract work and only makes films when he is assured complete artistic control over a project. He has made a total of six films since his debut BADLANDS (1973). The publication of a new book on Malick (Dominik Kamalzadeh, Michael Pekler: Terrence Malick, Schüren Verlag) and the release of his current film "To the Wonder" at the end of May provide suitable impetus for us to show his previous five directorial works together with a portrait of Malick, often in brand-new prints.

On May 26 Vaginal Davis presents the fourth and final part of the MGM musical series "Broadway Melody": In BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940 (Norman Taurog, USA 1940), Fred Astaire and George Murphy play a down on their luck dance duo, whose friendship is put to the test when a chance at big-scale Broadway fame at the side of starlet Claire Bennett (played by Eleanor Powell) presents itself. Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell, the biggest dance stars of their time, appeared here for the first and only time together before the camera, with Cole Porter taking care of the music.

Special or visual effects have long since ceased to be a marginal element of film, with an illusion generator of increasing perfection having emerged from the many early experiments, discoveries and techniques. The numerous innovations made in the SFX field during the analogue age were followed by a digital revolution around 90 years after Méliès' first "magic" films, opening up cinema to a seemingly limitless domain of computer generated images (CGIs for short). Computers or their "analogue" forebears are not merely capable of generating past or future realms and their inhabitants in the process, but can also create complex visualizations of whole worlds of feeling, perception and thought. The Magical History Tour throws light on the multi-faceted world of special and visual effects.

In this anniversary month, Ms. Vaginal Davis is presenting ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (Vincente Minnelli, USA 1970): The clairvoyant chain smoker Daisy Gamble (Barbra Streisand) decides to have therapy so she can quit. Under hypnosis, it is revealed that she was a promiscuous lady at the English royal court in a previous life. The therapy becomes complicated when the psychiatrist falls in love with Daisy's historical alter ego. "Minnelli und Ms. Streisand burst into life in the regression sequences. Minnelli's love of décor transforms the movie into very real fantasy and the star into a stunning looking and funny character." (Vincent Canby) Followed by drinks and music! (30.6.)