The Films of the 52nd Berlinale Forum

The Pull of Precisely Observed Matter. 

The selection process for the 52nd Berlinale Forum made one thing very clear: however much the pandemic may have paralysed life in our societies, filmmakers worldwide have lost none of their inventiveness and artistic desire. The works selected - 27 feature-length works in the main programme, 14 feature-length works and shorts in the Forum Special programme - are a dazzling demonstration of this.

The films already announced in December and the Forum Special film historical programme are joined by features with a penchant for deconstruction, such as Nie zgubiliśmy drogi (We Haven’t Lost Our Way) by Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal and Happer’s Comet by Tyler Taormina, unbridled and laconic comedies in the form of L’état et moi by Max Linz and Najeneun deopgo bameneun chupgo (Hot in Day, Cold at Night) by Park Song-yeol and the theatre adaptation O trio em mi bemol (The Kegelstatt Trio) by Rita Azevedo Gomes. The programme also encompasses documentary-tinged fictions, such as Mato seco em chamas (Dry Ground Burning) by Adirley Queirós and Joana Pimenta or Cette maison (This House) by Miryam Charles, archival explorations like Alain Gomis’ Rewind & Play and Mohammad Shawky Hassan’s queer experimental film Bashtaalak sa'at (Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?).

Many recurring motifs stand out, such as the various attempts to overcome cinema’s intrinsic anthropocentricism. In Raul Domingues‘ Terra que marca (Striking Land), the camera scours the ground, taking in furrows, water channels or seedlings. This may be no rural idyll, but such precise observation of matter exerts a hypnotic pull. Much the same applies to Geographies of Solitude. Jacquelyn Mills, an experimental filmmaker from Canada, travelled to Sable Island, a thin strip of land in the Atlantic, to accompany the work of Zoe Lucas, who has been cataloguing the island’s flora and fauna for decades on a voluntary basis. Mills’ 16mm images focus on wild horses, waves, freshwater ponds and bizarrely distorted clumps of plastic. Sometimes she buries unexposed film material beneath living roots and edits the resultant footage into the film. In this way, the island’s specific topography enters into a sort of co-authorship with the director.

Attempts to find appropriate contemporary forms of political cinema form another motif in the programme. The essay films Camuflaje (Camouflage) by Jonathan Perel from Argentina and El veterano (The Veteran) by Jeronimo Rodriguez from Chile explore political fault lines from their countries’ pasts that still carry latent significance in the present. This forges links to other previously announced films in turn, such as Nuclear Family by Erin and Travis Wilkerson, which, like El veterano, grapples with the atomic bomb and the residues of the Cold War.

The pandemic forms a further key motif. In Três tigres tristes (Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter), Gustavo Vinagre shows young queer people in São Paulo defying both the virus and the political failure of their government. One of the many things that Zheng Lu Xinyuan, a young director from China, films in her personal essay film Jet Lag is her trip from Vienna to China. The hazmat suits on the aeroplane and the layers of tape sealing off each room in the quarantine hotel conjure up images of crime scenes or medical thrillers, although once she does gymnastics on the bed, the mood immediately shifts.

Director Constantin Wulff was caught unaware by the start of the pandemic while shooting Für die Vielen – Die Arbeiterkammer Wien (For the Many – The Vienna Chamber of Labour). His documentary records the happenings at the Wiener Arbeiterkammer, an institution born from social democracy that offers legal support for employees – until he ends up setting his sights on how the institution itself functions as an employer. Another documentary to examine the consequences of Covid-19 is Scala by Ananta Thitanat. In her feature-length debut, the Thai director watches how a magnificent 1960s cinema is taken apart piece by piece. The walls remain in place, but everything else is removed. Thitanat films the end of an era that has been brought forward by the pandemic, thus throwing up the question of where the future of cinema lies.

The 2022 Forum Main Programme

Afterwater

Germany / Spain / South Korea / Serbia

by Dane Komljen

with Jonasz Hapka, Signe Westberg, Boban Kaluđer

World premiere

Akyn (Poet)

Kazakhstan

by Darezhan Omirbayev

with Yerdos Kanayev, Serik Salkinbayev, Klara Kabylgazina

European premiere

Bashtaalak sa'at (Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?)

Egypt / Lebanon / Germany

by Mohammad Shawky Hassan

with Donia Massoud, Ahmed El Gendy, Salim Mrad

World premiere / debut film

Camuflaje (Camouflage)

Argentina

by Jonathan Perel

with Felix Bruzzone, Margarita Molfino, Iris Avellaneda

World premiere / documentary form

Cette maison (This House)

Canada

by Miryam Charleswith Schelby Jean-Baptiste, Florence Blain Mbaye, Eve Duranceau

World premiere / debut film

La edad media (The Middle Ages)

Argentina

by Alejo Moguillansky, Luciana Acuña

with Cleo Moguillansky, Luciana Acuña, Alejo Moguillansky

World premiere

L’état et moi

Germany

by Max Linz

with Sophie Rois, Jeremy Mockridge, Hauke Heumann

World premiere

Europe

Germany / France

by Philip Scheffner

with Rhim Ibrir, Thierry Cantin, Didier Cuillierier

World premiere

Une fleur à la bouche (A Flower in the Mouth)

France / Germany / South Korea

by Éric Baudelaire

with Oxmo Puccino, Dali Benssalah

World premiere

Für die Vielen – Die Arbeiterkammer Wien (For the Many – The Vienna Chamber of Labour)

Austria

by Constantin Wulff

World premiere / documentary form

Geographies of Solitude

Canada

by Jacquelyn Mills

with Zoe Lucas

World premiere / documentary form

Happer’s Comet

USA

by Tyler Taormina

with Grace Berlino, Jax Terry, Ryan McGlade

World premiere

Jet Lag

Switzerland / Austria

by Zheng Lu Xinyuan

with Lin Wenqing, Zoe, Zheng Lu Xinyuan

World premiere / documentary form

Mato seco em chamas (Dry Ground Burning)

Brazil / Portugal

by Adirley Queirós, Joana Pimenta

with Joana Darc, Léa Alves, Andreia Vieira

World premiere

Miền ký ức (Memoryland)

Vietnam / Deutschland

by Kim Quy Bui

with Mong Giao Vu, Thi Thu Trang Nguyen, Van Thai Nguyen

European premiere

Mis dos voces (My Two Voices)

Canada

by Lina Rodriguez

with Ana Garay Kostic, Marinela Piedrahita, Claudia Montoya

World premiere / documentary form

Najeneun deopgo bameneun chupgo (Hot in Day, Cold at Night)

South Korea

by Park Song-yeol

with Won Hyang-ra, Park Song-yeol, Shin Won-woo

International premiere

Nie zgubiliśmy drogi (We Haven’t Lost Our Way)

Poland

by Anka Sasnal, Wilhelm Sasnal

with Agnieszka Żulewska, Andrzej Konopka, Oskar Hamerski

World premiere

Nuclear Family

USA / Singapore

by Erin Wilkerson, Travis Wilkerson

with Travis Wilkerson, Erin Wilkerson, Matilda Wilkerson

European premiere / documentary form

Rewind & Play

France / Germany

By Alain Gomis

World premiere / documentary form

Scala

Thailand

by Ananta Thitanat

with Pongpop Inheen, Saman Watcharasirirot, Nakorn Nuannngein

World premiere / debut film / documentary form

Super Natural

Portugal

by Jorge Jácome

with Alexis Fernandes, Bárbara Matos, Celestine Ngantonga Ndzana

World premiere / debut film / documentary form

Terra que marca (Striking Land)

Portugal

by Raul Domingues

with Maria Alice Sousa, Manual Jesus Duro, Joaquim Sousa

World premiere / documentary form

Três tigres tristes (Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter)

Brazil

by Gustavo Vinagre

with Pedro Ribeiro, Jonata Vieira, Isabella Pereira

World premiere

O trio em mi bemol (The Kegelstatt Trio)

Portugal / Spain

by Rita Azevedo Gomes

with Rita Durão, Pierre Léon, Ado Arrieta

World premiere

The United States of America

USA

by James Benning

World premiere / documentary form

El veterano (The Veteran)

Chile

by Jeronimo Rodriguez

World premiere