Again, the Berlinale will present a Documentary Award open to selected films from all sections.

The following Forum titles have been nominated: DEN' POBEDY (VICTORY DAY) by Sergei Losnitza, L'EMPIRE DE LA PERFECTION (IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION) by Julien Faraut, MINATOMACHI (INLAND SEA) by Kazuhiro Soda, PREMIÈRES SOLITUDES (YOUNG SOLITUDE) by Claire Simon and WALDHEIMS WALZER (THE WALDHEIM WALTZ) by Ruth Beckermann.

This prize for the best documentary film will be endowed with € 50,000, funded by Glashütte Original. A total of 18 documentary entries from the current programmes of the Competition, Panorama, Forum, Generation, Berlinale Special and Perspektive Deutsches Kino sections have been nominated. A three-member jury consisting of Cíntia Gil, head of Portugal's biggest doumentary festival Docliboa, German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger and the US-american journalist and filmmaker Eric Schlosser. The prize money will be split between the film’s director and producer.

Rising Stars, Falling Stars … Since 2007 at Arsenal and 2016 at silent green, Vaginal Davis has presented her finds from our archive over 100 times, always wearing a different dress, singing, dancing, reciting texts and hosting a post-screening drinks session with her co-curator, the pianist Daniel Hendrickson.

On January 12, we will reach to the stars with them for the last time when they show A. Edward Sutherland's EVERY DAY’S A HOLIDAY (1937), starring Mae West as a con artist, Louis Armstrong playing himself and five musketeers.

The Forum now completes its programme with a series of special screenings committed to an alternative view of film historiography.

Since its foundation in 1971, the Forum has always shone a spotlight on historical films too, shaking the foundations of a cinematic canon whose main interest lies in feature films from Western Europe and North America. This year’s programme once again stands in opposition to such views and is dedicated to cinema from Africa, documentary and experimental film, “anti-cinema” films and salacious b-movies and “dirty” films.

We are showing SET by Peter Miller (Germany 2016) and RIVERRED by Eva Heldmann (Germany 2011) in the DINAMO SCREENINGS on January 27. & 28. DINAMO is an international network of independent distributors of video art and experimental film.

SET will be screened at the first DINAMO screening with the theme "Originals Screening“ on January 27: "For this found footage animated film I downloaded 10,000 photographs of the sunset, adjusted each one and arranged them in order, setting into motion a singular, colossal, collective sunset."(Peter Miller)

On January 28 we show within the second DINAMO screening with the theme "Black and White Screenings" RIVERRED: "A girl is playing with her brother in the dark, holy waters of the Godavari River. I record the pair on video in spring, 2011 in Nashik, India. Orpheus and Heurtbise are crossing Hades in Jean Cocteau‘s black-and-white film Orphée from 1949. The materials clash in their difference from one another – the incompatibility of the styles fascinates me, like strangers standing side by side. Using various maneuvers, I place the materials in relation to one another. Formal similarities and parallels emerge, breaking open Orpheus’s poetic boundaries and extending the girl’s play and perspectives." (Eva Heldmann)

Both films premiered at Forum Expanded.

This year, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art is putting on the Forum as part of the Berlinale for the 48th time. The main programme consists of 44 films, 35 of which world premieres. This year’s Special Screenings will be announced in a second press release.

21 years after his directorial debut THE DAY A PIG FELL INTO THE WELL, Korean director Hong Sangsoo makes a more auspicious return to the Forum. GRASS is another cheerfully melancholy story about the guests at a small café whose owner loves classical music. Kim Minhee, who won the Silver Bear for Best Actress in 2017, plays a café regular who always seems to be at the table in the corner writing on her laptop. She repeatedly draws inspiration from what’s happening around her, picking up the threads of the dialogue and spinning them further and sometimes even actively intervening in conversations. Is she perhaps the author of these relationship dramas in miniature, whose stores and themes mirror one another?