The long-term reportage Občan Havel (Citizen Havel) follows the term of office of former Czech President Václav Havel in an unprecedented intimacy with the private side of political activity. In 1993, at the start of Havel's first presidency, filmmaker Pavel Koutecký began the project that would accompany him and Havel for more than a decade. The camera was always on hand: behind the scenes and on the political stage, with Clinton in the jazz club, with the Rolling Stones at Prague's Castle. Koutecký, who died in an accident in 2006, left more than 100 hours of film material. It was up to Miroslav Janek to assemble a multilayer portrait of the self-conscious, charismatic literary man and former dissident and to turn a period of historical upheaval into a unique film document.

 

The five-hour film ... dann leben sie noch heute. Die Kinder von Golzow (... They're Living Happily Ever After. The Children of Golzow) by Winfried and Barbara Junge concludes 46 years of the "Chronicle of the Children of Golzow", the longest-lasting observation in film history. Begun shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall, it meanwhile extends beyond the end of communist East Germany and also documents the changes in the political and societal situation thereafter. The 19th and last part of this life work portrays four of the children who entered school in 1961; they are still living in the village of Golzow in the Oderbruch region.

 

In his feature debut, If One Thing Matters: a film about Wolfgang Tillmans, Heiko Kalmbach presents a personal portrait of the star photographer. In the 1990s, Tillmans became known for his photos of parties and club life; today he is among the world's most famous photographers. Kalmbach accompanied him with a video camera for four years, capturing the daily work of the versatile, creative artist in London.

 

The Philippine film The Muzzled Horse Of An Engineer In Search Of Mechanical Saddles bursts with untamable imagination – and accordingly bears the wackiest title in the Forum program. At the premiere, multi-talent Khavn De La Cruz will accompany his film on the sexual obsessions of a fired engineer with a music performance. Hardly less intoxicating is Dušan Makavejev's subversive classic W. R. – Misterije Organizma (W. R. – Mysteries of the Organism) from 1971, a new print of which will be screened in the Forum on the occasion of Makavejev's master class at the Berlinale Talent Campus. The surrealistic exploration of the teachings of the psychoanalyst and sexologist Wilhelm Reich was already shown in the Forum in 1971 and has lost none of its explosive power.

 

Independent cinema from the United States is represented by two fascinating rediscoveries: Charles Burnett, who showed his legendary 1977-debut Killer of Sheep last year in the Forum, has meanwhile restored his second film, My Brother's Wedding, which was made in 1983 and lost for more than three decades. The Forum shows the new director's cut of the family drama about two brothers who are worlds apart. Kent Mackenzie's feature film The Exiles is equally seminal. Completed in 1961, this poetic work on the life of Native Americans in the big city soon disappeared from view, until Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" quoted the soundtrack and Thom Anderson showed excerpts of the film in "Los Angeles Plays Itself". At the Forum, the restored version will have its world premiere.

 

The Special Screenings of the Forum will be supplemented with new works by American experimental filmmakers James Benning and Michel Auder, as well as with the Thai feature film Wonderful Town, a subtle exploration of the psychosocial effects of the tsunami disaster.

 

Special Screenings of the 38th Forum

... dann leben sie noch heute. Die Kinder von Golzow (... they're living happily ever after. The Children of Golzow) by Winfried Junge, Barbara Junge, Germany (WP)

The Exiles by Kent Mackenzie, USA 1961

The Feature by Michel Auder, Andrew Neel, USA (WP)

If One Thing Matters: a film about Wolfgang Tillmans by Heiko Kalmbach, Germany/USA (WP)

The Muzzled Horse of an Engineer in Search of Mechanical Saddles by Khavn De La Cruz, The Philippines (WP)

My Brother's Wedding by Charles Burnett, USA/Germany 1983/2007

Občan Havel (Citizen Havel) by Pavel Koutecký, Miroslav Janek, Czech Republic (IP)

RR by James Benning, USA

Wonderful Town by Aditya Assarat, Thailand

W. R. – Misterije organizma (W. R. – Mysteries of the Organism) von Dušan Makavejev, Yugoslavia/Germany 1971