Jenny Perlin - Berlin: Forum Expanded (2006)

Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin

Forum Expanded

Berlinale and KW Institute for Contemporary Art Present

Video Art and Installations

Opening: February 8 | 5:00 PM | KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Opening: February 9 | 6:00 PM | Kino Arsenal
Exhibition: February 9-26, 2006

The Berlinale Forum is developing new ways of presenting contemporary film and video art. Under the title Forum Expanded, in collaboration with the KW Institute for Contemporary Art for the first time, it will be showing a current selection of film, video, and room installations that move along the interface between cinema and installation art. In the future, installations and performances inspired by cinema will also be regularly integrated into the framework of the Berlinale.

Amos Gitai, whose video installation News from House / News from Home will open on February 8, 2006 in the KW, has already shown four films in the Forum. The Forum honors the work of the acclaimed Israeli filmmaker with a special screening of his new film News from Home / News from House. With this film, Gitai completes his House trilogy, which began with Bait (The House, 1982 in the Forum) and continued in 1998 with A House in Jerusalem. In this trilogy a building and its history in West-Jerusalem become a microcosm for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The video installation makes connections between film images from 25 years on 20 monitors. It will be accompanied by a discussion of the current situation of filmmaking in Israel. At the conclusion of the Berlinale, the Kino Arsenal will show an almost complete retrospective of Amos Gitai's films.

Like last year, the Black Box has been set up in the foyer of the Kino Arsenal; in it a trilogy by Jenny Perlin will be presented. In the cinema, performative works by Elle Flanders and Angela Melitopoulos are shown, along with Sharon Lockhart's new 16mm production Pine Flat. With "Sshtoorrty or Short Story" by Michael Snow and "Spiral Nebula" by Ken Jacobs, Forum Expanded also presents two works by masters of North American avant-garde film.

With "hobbykeller", Meggie Schneider is showing her third room installation in the Atrium of the Filmhaus. The floorplan of a single-family home with garden comprises the playing field for festival attendees, with leisure activities from a pingpong tournament to slot car racing.