Berlin unveils Forum line-up

Social upheaval, transition and change feature as the key themes that encompass the majority of the features on display at this year’s Forum.

European cinema is particularly prominent in the 2013 programme, featuring a new generation of filmmakers in Georgia, four fresh, unusual, and original examples of extremely diverse filmmaking from Germany and pictures from Croatia and Greece and a debut picture from Spanish director Neus Ballús. La plaga (The Plague) observes five people of different origins on the outskirts of the metropolis of Barcelona, all of whom are struggling desperately for their survival.

Daniel Joseph Borgman’s feature debut, The Weight of Elephants, will also feature. Borgman’s picture is a Danish–New Zealand co-production that tells the story of a ten-year-old boy who sees the world in a playful, dreamy manner and uses his imagination to escape the harshness of everyday life in small town New Zealand.

There are also three features from across the Atlantic featuring Matt Porterfield’s I Used to Be Darker about a young woman from Northern Ireland whose struggles with love lead her to seek refuge with relatives on the east coast of the United States.

Film List

Die 727 Tage ohne Karamo (The 727 Days without Karamo) by Anja Salomonowitz, Austria – WP

A Single Shot by David M. Rosenthal, USA/United Kingdom/Canada – WP

Al-khoroug lel-nahar (Coming Forth by Day) by Hala Lotfy, Egypt

A batalha de Tabatô (The Battle of Tabatô) by João Viana, Guinea-Bissau/Portugal – WP

Computer Chess by Andrew Bujalski, USA – IP 

Echolot by Athanasios Karanikolas, Germany – WP

Elelwaniby Ntshavheni Wa Luruli, South Africa – IP

Fahtum pandinsoong (Boundary)by Nontawat Numbenchapol, Thailand/Cambodia – WP

Fynbos by Harry Patramanis, South Africa/Greece – IP

Grzeli nateli dgeebi (In Bloom) by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß, Georgia/Germany – WP

Halbschatten(Everyday Objects) by Nicolas Wackerbarth, Germany/France – WP

Hélio Oiticica by Cesar Oiticia Filho, Brazil – IP

I aionia epistrofi tou Antoni Paraskeua(The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas)by Elina Psykou, Greece – WP

I kóri (The Daughter) by Thanos Anastopoulos, Greece/Italy – IP

I Used to Be Darker by Matt Porterfield, USA – IP

Je ne suis pas mort (I’m Not Dead) by Mehdi Ben Attia, France – IP

Krugovi(Circles)by Srdan Golubović, Serbia/Germany

Kujira no machi (The Town of Whales) by Keiko Tsuruoka, Japan

Lamma shoftak (When I Saw You) by Annemarie Jacir, Palestinian Territories/Jordan

Matar extraños (Killing Strangers) by Jacob Secher Schulsinger, Nicolás Pereda, Mexico/Denmark – WP

Materia oscura (Dark Matter) by Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Perenti, Italy – WP

Das merkwürdige Kätzchen (The Strange Little Cat) by Ramon Zürcher, Germany – WP

Le météore (The Meteor) by François Delisle, Canada

Mo sheng (Forgetting to Know You) by Quan Ling, People’s Republic of China – WP

…Moddhikhane Char (Char… The No Man’s Island) by Sourav Sarangi, India

Obrana i zaštita (A Stranger) by Bobo Jelčić, Croatia/Bosnia Herzegovina – WP

La Paz by Santiago Loza, Argentina – WP

La plaga (The Plague) by Neus Ballús, Spain – WP 

Powerlessby Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar, India – WP

Sakura namiki no mankai no shita ni(Cold Bloom) by Atsushi Funahashi, Japan

Senzo ni naru (Roots)by Kaoru Ikeya, Japan – WP

Shirley– Visions of Reality by Gustav Deutsch, Austria – WP

Sieniawkaby Marcin Malaszczak, Germany/Poland – WP

StemplePassby James Benning, USA – IP

Sto lyko (To the Wolf) by Christina Koutsospyrou and Aran Hughes, Greece/France – WP

Terra de ninguém (No Man’s Land) by Salomé Lamas, Portugal – IP

Tian mi mi (Together)by Hsu Chao-jen, Taiwan

Vaters Garten – Die Liebe meiner Eltern(Father’s Garden - The Love of My Parents) by Peter Liechti, Switzerland – WP

Violaby Matías Piñeiro, Argentina

The Weight of Elephants by Daniel Joseph Borgman, New Zealand/Denmark – WP

Za Marksa… (For Marx…) by Svetlana Baskova, Russia – IP

(WP = World Premiere, IP = International Premiere)