Our next event for children aged 6 and above takes place on October 4. Films are usually projected at 24 frames per second. Whether they appear fast or slow depends on what you’re looking at, how the film was edited, how you perceive the film and sometimes also what you can hear. We will screen widely different short films that are fast or slow in one way or another. M.M. Serra’s PPII (USA 1986) has an incredible speed due to its many very short cuts. In contrast, Bruce Baillie’s ALL MY LIFE (USA 1966) is one, single shot without any cuts at all. Jonas Mekas filmed NOTES ON THE CIRCUS (USA 1966) over the course of three circus performances, but exposed all three one above the other. As a result, the viewer sees at the same time what actually occurred in a sequence. Elena Duque paints in a real filmed landscape (VALDEDIÓS , Spain 2019), creating two layers of time. And as for Ted Fendt’s THE STONE TOWER (2020), we’ll give nothing away.

As a follow-up to the 50th-anniversary Forum program at this year’s Berlinale, we will show two more films from the first Forum in 1971 this month, starting with LETTERA APERTA A UN GIORNALE DELLA SERA (Open Letter to the Evening News, Francesco Maselli, I 1970, 12.10.) A group of Marxist intellectuals responds to an appeal by an evening newspaper with an open letter in which they propose to head a delegation joining the war in Vietnam. When approval and interest begins to flow in from across Europe and even Vietnam’s Communist Party accepts the proposal, the group finds themselves in trouble. ICH LIEBE DICH, ICH TÖTE DICH (Uwe Brandner, BRD 1971, 19.10.) was described by its director as “a picture story from home.” A young teacher arrives at a remote village in Bavaria’s Altmühltal region. There, wealthy gentlemen have created a hunting ground for themselves at the edge of the wilderness. The friendship with the local gamekeeper develops into a love affair, which heralds the end of the fragile idyll.