The Berlinale Forum sharpens the gaze for films of social relevance and as a form of aesthetic reflection. These are films by people who take their work and its impact seriously: the way it affects our coexistence, our battles, our reconciliations, our history and stories, how togetherness, beauty and solidarity are experienced and how we shape our social, cultural, ecological and political present and future. With 32 films in the main programme and a Forum Special that engages head on with sensitive issues such as critical filmmaking in the age of artificial intelligence, the 56th Forum offers numerous opportunities to explore the cinema status quo in all its many facets.
“Finding an entry point to the world through cinema — and returning to film grain, pixel, photo, camera view, soundtrack and archive image as well as increasingly turning to virtual and AI-generated images”, section head Barbara Wurm remarks, “is something that independent filmmakers are dealing with as well as those more established in the system, whether in auteur and genre cinema or fiction and documentary. The exciting thing about this year’s edition — probably the most political in a long time — is the diverse range of different cinematic forms used to set out concrete themes that hurt, such as enduring colonialism and the structural repression of Indigenous populations, violence against women, systems of corruption, social injustices. These are contrasted by self-explorations, and, like last year already, conscious elective affinities.”
Of a total of 15 features in the main programme, six are stylistically convincing debuts, from Brazil, Colombia, China, India, Japan and Germany: LIEBHABERINNEN (WOMEN AS LOVERS) by Koxi, an adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek. Female power in fantastic second features is brought by Ralitza Petrova, LUST, and Banu Sıvacı, HEAR THE YELLOW, respectively. The Forum remains political also in the realm of fiction, as demonstrated by the latest coup by Indonesian genre star Joko Anwar, GHOST IN THE CELL, Chung Il-young’s MY NAME and the Japanese debut ANYMART — which marries supermarket horror to social critique.
Haile Gerimas’s long awaited BLACK LIONS – ROMAN WOLVES uses archive footage and first-hand testimonies to weave together a nearly ten-hour reckoning with the history and myths of Italian colonialism in Ethiopia while simultaneously honouring the resistance to it. Gerima’s film is flanked by a whole series of other significant documentaries. These include Madhusree Dutta’s FLYING TIGERS, Sofia Bordenave’s FOREST UP IN THE MOUNTAIN, which dissects racism against the Mapuche in Patagonia, Rania Rafei’s portrait of Tripoli and Anat Even’s piercing reflective essay EFFONDREMENT (COLLAPSE) about the mourning after 7 October, the war in Gaza and questions of causality and responsibility. Rithy Panh is also expected at the Forum for the very first time, with an outstanding observation of the Indigenous Bunong in Cambodia which analyses the clash between local and global economies.
Both EINAR SCHLEEF — ICH HABE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND GEFUNDEN (EINAR SCHLEEF — NO GERMANY DID I FIND) and Marie Wilke’s SZENARIO (SCENARIO) reflect on German sensibilities, the latter by way of the biggest military model city in Europe, showing how the German army is navigating its past, war simulations and an uncertain future. In CHRONOS, Volker Koepp reconnects with people from the regions to the east of the Weichsel who he has already called on in many of his films. While looking back at his own oeuvre, he crafts a longitudinal study that sketches out the political upheavals culminating in Russia’s war against the Ukraine in seismographic fashion — a fundamental film about Europe. Koepp’s epic work meets its transatlantic match in James Benning’s EIGHT BRIDGES, whose starting point is the laconic observation that it “seems to be the time to consider bridges”.
As always, the Forum also offers a platform for hybrid and experimental forms, including the Swedish gem DOGGERLAND, the “zen retreat” debut film MASAYUME by performer Nao Yoshigai, Ted Fendt’s 16mm delight AUSLANDSREISE (FOREIGN TRAVEL), the hilarious femme film EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOISE as well as JOY BOY, a flashy tribute to composer Julius Eastman, and the New Zealand / Nigerian film CROCODILE by Pietra Brettkelly with and about the artists collective The Critics. Making films collectively is the motto here, extending to concrete community, solidarity in society and elective affinities: As Kevin Contento does, with THE MOTHS & THE FLAME — a portrait of young Black fathers in his neighbourhood — and Nurith Aviv’s PRÉNOMS (GIVEN NAMES), warm and enlightening at once.
Bonus texts on the films and interviews with all the directors included in the programme will be published on the Arsenal website in the coming weeks.
