Cinema is being rethought, with the mid-length format in particular seeming to offer new artistic freedoms with a true disregard for uniformity. A striking number of films in this year’s programme, whether shot digitally or on 16mm, 35mm, or even 70mm, are somewhere between 20 and 60 minutes in length. As such, they leave categories like feature, documentary, experimental or art film behind them to develop a contemporary film language able to take account of the complexity of their worlds of experience. A newly created set of screenings throws light on this development and includes films by Laura Mulvey, Marc Lewis and Faysal Abdullah, Omer Fast, Dani Gal and Amie Siegel.

Alongside Arsenal, Forum Expanded will be presenting its 9th edition at two new locations in Kreuzberg. The 2014 group exhibition is to take place at ST. AGNES, with Forum Expanded taking over the church space of this former parish hall, which will form the future premises of Galerie Johann König. This location offers room for installations that create their own individual spaces in order to generate specific cinematic experiences.

The nearby Berlinische Galerie – Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture has also come on board as a partner for screenings and special events.

The “Think:Film” conference day takes place there in collaboration with the Allianz Cultural Foundation. Defining cinema has increasingly become a question of its location, a question not merely restricted to the relationship between film and art or public and private space. Contemporary artistic film practice equally questions the concept of “world cinema” and the many relationships and interdependencies that accompany it. This year for example, we received an unusually large number of works from the Arab world that do not only alter our view of cinema but also of how its history is to be written. During “Think:Film”, Forum Expanded will also be awarding a prize for the first time, which comprises the winning work being shown both at Arsenal in Berlin and at the Cimatheque in Cairo, which is in the process of being founded.

Newly discovered material from the estate of legendary American performer, filmmaker and queer icon Jack Smith will also be shown at the Berlinische Galerie. The programme includes footage of drag performer and Andy Warhol superstar Mario Montez who died in September 2013. Presented by Jerry Tartaglia and co-curated by Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel, the event is dedicated to Montez’s memory. 

As in previous years, the Marshall McLuhan Salon of the Embassy of Canada will form an additional festival location.

Forum Expanded is curated by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (head curator), Anselm Franke, Nanna Heidenreich, Bettina Steinbrügge and Ulrich Ziemons.