When the political controversy that broke out at the Berlinale in 1970 literally shut down the Competition, the resulting fallout brought to the surface a lot of internal conflict about the identity of the Berlinale itself. The solution was to create a new program, a counter event to the Competition which would be, as founding director Ulrich Gregor put it, “"a catch-all for everything dangerous, subversive, or in any way unruly." The Forum has stayed its course for 40 years now. Initiated in 2006, Forum Expanded provided an additional artistic space for reflection and innovation, inspiring and offering up for discussion new developments on and beyond the screen.

 

"Of course we like to be this way," says current section director Christoph Terhechte, "a festival needs a place where it’s possible to be more experimental, or more crazy. But it doesn’t mean that we are against anything. It's not about commercial or not commercial, it's about whether it's an authentic, original, individual work of its creator."

 

In recent years, they have developed a more direct co-operation with the EFM. This includes arranging for selected films to be listed in the EFM Catalogue and promoting the Forum press screenings as venues for Market buyers. Like other sections, the Forum has its established relationships with various sales agents who have come to look to the Forum not only during, but before the festival. "We are in communication about what’s going on," Christoph adds, "and they like to think of us almost as free scouts. And of course if I see a film submitted to us and it’s not yet finished, there have been times when I could make a contact to a sales company and they’ve come aboard and made it possible for the film to be completed and shown in the festival."

 

View this year's lineup of the  Forum and  Forum Expanded.

Visit the Forum's own  website.

 

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