BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM 1
2 – 6 June 2010
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
D-10557 Berlin – Tiergarten
Germany
The first edition of the BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM includes:
‘Documentary Moments’, a series of public talks and screenings put together by filmmaker Eyal Sivan. It is an effort to elaborate the history of documentary film through encounters with and between filmmakers who witnessed and shaped particular moments in the practice’s history. ‘Documentary Moments: Renaissance’ is an homage to a generation of artists, who contributed to the revival of documentary film in the post-war period. Participants include filmmakers Edgar Morin, Marcel Ophuls, Alain Resnais, Frederick Wiseman, and more.
Curator Okwui Enwezor presents ‘Rules of Evidence’, an interdisciplinary program examining notions of testimony and witnessing, fundamental to the public dissemination and reception of the documentary form. Against the tendency to offer the documentary as purely a matter of making images visible, this project seeks to withdraw – temporarily – from the documentary as a fact/truth-based regime. It involves a five-day live reading from documentary accounts of historic events, installations by artists Tony Cokes and Juan Maidagan & Dolores Zinny conceived in response to those accounts, and a collaboration with a major German newspaper reflecting the place of the photographic document in the media.
‘Der Möglichkeitsraum (The Blast of the Possible)’ is a temporary set conceived by video artist Angela Melitopoulos as an extended post-production studio. In three events, curators and archivists enter into a dialogue about their work on specific films and video archives. Each event is conceived as a performative live-montage, questioning histories of the cinematic image, the gaps and omissions in historical imagery and the construction of spaces of memory. With Brian Holmes, Bettina Knaup, and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus.
Curator Eduardo Thomas presents a selection of contemporary experimental documentaries – all shown as German premieres. The program brings together films recently shot in South America and the Middle and Far East. The discussions with the filmmakers depart from previously dominant notions such as ‘authorship’, ‘authority’ and ‘authenticity’. With filmmakers Uruphong Raksasad, João Moreira Salles, Ben Russell, and more.
Florian Schneider conducts long-term research on political documentary films for German television produced from the 1960s to the early 1980s. This period marks the peak of a sub-genre of exceptional standing in the history of television that is nearly forgotten today. The project begins with a presentation of films by one of the most idiosyncratic and exacting protagonists from this period, Michael Mrakitsch, about whom Die Zeit once wrote: ‘Mrakitsch–this is the triumph of documentary over fiction.’
Further contributions by Catherine David, Ariella Azoulay, Omer Fast, Rabih Mroué, Issam Nasser and many others.
Haus der Kulturen der Welt is supported by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien on the basis of a resolution adopted by the Deutscher Bundestag and Auswärtiges Amt.
BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM 1
June 2 – 6, 2010
Press conference: June 2, 2010, 5 pm
Venue
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
D-10557 Berlin – Tiergarten
Accreditation
Accreditation is required by 15.05.2010 on www.hkw.de/berlin.doc.forum/accreditation
Accreditation is mandatory for the press conference and to obtain a press pass.
Further information
Feel free to write us your comments and questions at berlin.doc.forum@hkw.de
Press
Anne Maier
Press Officer
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
+49 (0)30 39787.153
anne.maier@hkw.de
BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
