47th Berlinale Forum /
12th Forum Expanded
On Wednesday February 8, the 12th Forum Expanded opens its doors with the group exhibition "The Stars Down to Earth" at the Akademie der Künste at Hanseatenweg, where works by James Benning, Jeamin Cha, Mike Crane, Noam Enbar, Oliver Husain, Karrabing Film Collective, Merle Kröger, Izadora Nistor and Philip Scheffner, Sandra Schäfer, Joe Namy, RIWAQ, Take to the Sea, Oraib Toukan and Katrin Winkler are on display.
Constructed Futures: Haret Hreik by Sandra Schäfer (Germany)
The 4-channel installation Constructed Futures: Haret Hreik is concerned with the ideological, aesthetic, religious, and political implications of the architecture of reconstruction, using the example of the Beirut neighborhood Haret Hreik.
Hawamesh Aan Al-Hegra (Footnotes on Migration) by Mohamed A. Gawad und Lina Attalah mit Take to the Sea (Egypt)
In 2008, the collective Take to the Sea worked on a documentary that attempted to describe experiences of migration by sea from the north coast of Egypt to Europe. Eight years later, two of them revisit the video footage produced in the process.
Santa Maria 3D by Oliver Husain (Canada)
Based on the myth of an island said to have formed from the wreckage of a replica of one of Columbus’s ships, Isla Santa Maria 3D draws together the violent legacy of colonialism with developments of perspective drawing and stereoscopic image making.
IZADORA (listening to versions of herself) by Philip Scheffner, Merle Kröger, Izadora Nistor (Germany)
A sunny afternoon. This moment belongs to Izadora alone, bursting into thousands of seconds, or extending one split second to infinity. In this moment, everything is possible.
Pana hageshem (The rain is gone) by Noam Enbar (Israel)
Participants of a theater workshop in a detention center in the Israeli desert perform a structured-improvisatory composition based on a popular Israeli agricultural song, associated with the kibbutz movement, turned into an expressive polyphonic chant.
Purple, Bodies in Translation - Part II of A Yellow Memory from the Yellow Age by Joe Namy (Lebanon)
A sound and video installation on the act of translating war and trauma. A reflective space for the audience to think through the intricacies of the war in Syria and Iraq, mediated through testimony.
Untitled Fragments by James Benning (USA)
The video and sound installation brings together four histories, the 1860s scorched earth policy of Kit Carson, the 1967 execution of Che Guevara in Bolivia, the 1972 carpet-bombing of Hanoi, and the 2016 Cedar Fire in the California Sierras.
Twelve by Jeamin Cha (South Korea)
The installation tries to imagine the privately held meetings of the South Korean Minimum Wage Commission, making public the secret negotiations that affect the whole population.
UHF42 E01+E02 by Mike Crane (USA)
UHF42 E01+E02, the first two episodes of a teledrama set within the studios and offices of Wattan TV, a 24-hour television news agency based in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, follows the crew as they act out the production of a news segment.
When Things Occur by Oraib Toukan (Great Britain)
Based on conversations with Gaza-based photographers, fixers, and drivers who were behind specific widely diffused images of the 2014 War on Gaza, the film probes the face of mourning and grief – its enactment, transmission, and representation.
Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams by Karrabing Film Collective (Australia)
An exploration of the multiple demands and inescapable vortexes of contemporary indigenous life through three versions of a story of how a boat’s motor broke down and left an indigenous family stranded out in the bush.
Towards Memory by Katrin Winkler