Three years after Harun Farocki's sudden death in 2014, the multifaceted nature and consistency of his pioneering oeuvre, which spanned almost 50 years, are all the more apparent. Between 1966, when he started studying at the newly-founded Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb), and 2013, Farocki made several cinema works and television programs. He also wrote pertinent and often polemical texts of film criticism, as well as teaching at a series of universities, film and art schools. From the 1990s onwards, he gained acknowledgement in increasingly wider circles and was perceived above all as an installation artist and visual theorist. His works understand themselves explicitly as theory, critiques and politics of different types of image, but they also offer examples of precise analysis of work processes in an era when production and seeing are becoming increasingly mechanized. The breadth of Farocki's oeuvre ranges from agitprop, pamphlet-esque films, to self-reflexive, associative and open forms as well as to more reserved, patient observation studies. "Year by Year / Side by Side" is the most comprehensive retrospective of Harun Farocki's work to date. Alongside the exhibition "Harun Farocki: Mit anderen Mitteln – By Other Means" (curated by Antje Ehmann and Carlos Guerra) at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, the temporary "Farocki Now" academy organized by the Harun Farocki Institut at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the silent green Kulturquartier and the publication of his incomplete autobiography, the program will give audiences a chance to become acquainted, or reacquainted, with Farocki's oeuvre and all its nuances. This program will continue in October and November.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary since Berlin and Los Angeles became sister cities, on 13th September the film curator Marc Glöde and collector Axel Haubrok will present a comprehensive program of films made by artists from Los Angeles.

Faces look at you — everywhere! Visual communication would lack a pivotal element without the representation of human physiognomy. The development of the depiction of facial images in the 20th century would be inconceivable without cinema and the possibilities of close-up. The versatility of the filmic depiction of the face — from the perfectly lit, subjectivizing, and identity-shaping shots of a star's gaze to the de-individualized motif "face" - is the focus of the Magical History Tour in September.

Three Forum films are representing their countries at the race for the 90th Academy Awards in the foreign-language category: NEWTON by Amit Masurkar is India's entry to the awards, TEMPESTAD by Tatiana Huezo is sent by Mexico, and Laura Schroeder's BARRAGE is representing Luxembourg.

The nine final nominees, which are selected by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as well as the Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, will be announced in January 2018.

CASTING by Nicolas Wackerbarth has received the 2017 Filmkunstpreis at the Festival of German Films in Ludwigshafen. The award which is endowed with 50.000 Euros was given ex aequo to CASTING and "Western" by Valeska Grisebach.

CASTING premiered in this year's Forum programme and was acclaimed both by the audience and (international) film critics.

The 13th edition of "Big Cinema, Small Cinema" moderated by Anna Faroqhi and Haim Peretz on September 24 is drawing on a film by Harun Farocki, whose oeuvre is subject of a retrospective shown at the Arsenal this month.

In his documentary JEAN-MARIE STRAUB UND DANIÈLE HUILLET BEI DER ARBEIT AN EINEM FILM NACH FRANK KAFKAS ROMANFRAGMENT "AMERIKA" (FRG 1983) the filmmaker shows other filmmakers at work. Harun Farocki was a student and admirer of the directors whom he portrays in his film. Straub and Huillet stage-manage rehearsals at the theater very precisely and without paying attention to time. The sound of words is important. There can be no mistakes because the camera will record everything for eternity. What springs to mind is how calm the working environment is. The development of a film is shown as the implementation of an idea. We will watch this film about making films and then afterwards there will be a chance to make a small film scene and to watch with or without a camera.