BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM ONLINE TV

BDF-Online TV is a five-day online television program on the first edition of the BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM. It captures the Forum’s crucial moments and a number of selected shows, presentations and discussions. The Online TV program also includes in-depth interviews and reports on the role of the documentary today and its online representation.


Wednesday June 2, 2010	Opening speech by Bernd Scherer Opening of the Berlin Documentary Forum No. 1 by Bernd Scherer, director Haus der Kulturen der Welt (English translation). The film...

Wednesday June 2, 2010	Opening speech by Hila Peleg Opening of the Berlin Documentary Forum No. 1 by Hila Peleg, Artistic Director BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM 1. The film...

Wednesday June 2, 2010	Interview with Angela Melitopoulos and Bettina Knaup Alan Toner asks Angela Melitopoulos and Bettina Knaup about their program "Möglichkeitsraum - Feminism and Performance Art". Most of the program cannot be screened online due to copyright problems that burden much video performance art. Bettina Knaup and Angela Melitopoulos explain the particular situation of that genre, and how it is effecting their work with an archive of feminist performance art. The interview...

Wednesday June 2, 2010 20:30h	Rules of Evidence Okwui Enwezor examines notions of testimony and witnessing fundamental to the reception of the documentary form and its institutionalization in contemporary culture. A talk between Okwui Enwezor and Ecke Bonk, Tony Cokes, Walid Sadek, Juan Maidagan and Dolores Zinny. The film...

Wednesday June 2, 2010	Interview with Eyal Sivan Conceived by filmmaker Eyal Sivan, the long-term project “Documentary Moments” elaborates documentary film practice through screenings and encounters with filmmakers who shaped particular moments of the practice’s history. In this interview, Alan Toner discusses with Eyal Sivan the background of the "Documentary Moments" and questions that evolve from revisiting films and filmmakers who have shaped the concept of the Documentary so strongly. The interview...

Thursday June 3, 2010	Interview with Rabih Mroué Alan Toner interviews Rabih Mroué and discusses implications that images might have and the possiblity that they bear an reality of their own. Rabih Mroué also gives some insights about his performance, for those who didn't get a chance to see it. The interview...

Thursday June 3, 2010 15:00h	The Catastrophe Cultural historians Ariella Azoulay and Issam Nassar discuss the representation of Palestinian refugees in photographs from 1947 to the early 1950s. Their conversation addresses theoretical and aesthetic aspects of interpreting photographs, as well as the role photography can play in questioning the dominant discourse on the creation of the State of Israel. The film...

Thursday June 3, 2010 17:00h	Authorship. Authority. Authenticity. Recent Documentaries from Elsewhere: Struggle In Jerash The film offers access to the process of self-understanding through the careful compilation of new commentary voiceover by contemporary Jordanian thinkers on the first feature film shot in Jordan (D: Wassif Sheik Yassin, 1957). Discussion with Eduardo Thomas, Eileen Simpson, Ben White The film...

Thursday June 3, 2010 19:00h	Documentary Moments: "Take 1 - Towards 'Night and Fog': Alain Resnais" A landmark in both documentary practice and the narration of genocide, Alain Resnais’ Nuit et brouillard (Night and Fog) quintessentially demonstrates the use of images to establish an independent authority. Discussion with Marie-José Mondzain, Adrian Rifkin and Eyal Sivan The film...

Thursday June 3, 2010 22:00h	Möglichkeitsraum: "The Life of a Film Archive" The Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art works on establishing new relations between the conservation and actualization of a film archive. Video artist Angela Melitopoulos engages curator Stefanie Schulte Strathaus who presents the idea of a “living” film archive in a selection of feminist and queer films from three historic cinematic events at the Arsenal. (German version only) The film...

Friday June 4, 2010 12:00h	Möglichkeitsraum: "Extra-disciplinary Art and Media Activism" Video artist Angela Melitopoulos engages Media Activism Brian Holmes in a dialogue on extra-disciplinary Art Practices and Media Activism while he is presenting his archives and research. Holmes examines four audiovisual regimes that have emerged in the, USA since WW II: broadcast television in the Cold War consumer society; video as a subversion of the televisual norm; networked computing and its new forms of “control environments”; and new communication tactics of migration movements. The film...

Friday June 4, 2010 14:00h	Authorship. Authority. Authenticity. Recent Documentaries from Elsewhere: "California Company Town" Schmitt invites us to join her in an alternate reading of the past. The film affords a critical view of linear progress and the loss of the American Dream. Discussion with Eduardo Thomas and Lee Anne Schmitt. The film...

Friday June 4, 2010 16:30h	A Blind Spot A conversation between Catherine David and Joachim Koester. The project evolves around key art works from the past fifteen years as well as new pieces that explore the link between aesthetics, history and politics. David’s prologue to a subsequent exhibition (BDF 2,2012) highlights the work of artist Joachim Koester, who explores the tension between imaginary sites, aesthetic tropes and physical places. In “Morning of the Magicians” (2005) and in “One + One + One” (2006), Koester visits a house in Cefalú, Sicily, known as “The Abbey of Thelema”, which once served as a communal home for the occultist Aleister Crowley and his group of devotees. The film...

Friday June 4, 2010 18:00h	Documentary Moments: "Take 2 - Memory of The Future: Edgar Morin" In 2007, artists Ayreen Anastas, François Bucher and Rene Gabri unearthed an interview with Edgar Morin, in which he mentioned a cache of original rushes. A discussion with Edgar Morin, Rene Gabri, Ayreen Anastas, François Bucher and Eyal Siva including shots from the original 16 mm rushes of Chronicle of a summer. The film...

Saturday June 5, 2010	Interview Lee Anne Schmitt Filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt discusses artistic and filmmaking practice with Alan Toner. Having chosen chosen to work with 16mm film, she describees her rationale, working conditions and artistic practice. These are significantly determined by the difficult economic situation faced by independent filmmakers today. The interview...

Saturday June 5, 2010	Interview Florian Schneider Filmmaker Florian Schneider has organised a retrospective about Michal Mraktisch for the Berlin Documentary Forum under the title "Missing Image". Alan Toner asks Florian Schneider about the background of this remarkable filmmaker and his role and influence for the development of the Documentary Film as we know it today. The interview...

Saturday June 5, 2010 12:00h	Authorship. Authority. Authenticity. Recent Documentaries from Elsewhere: "Santiago" In his portrait of his family’s butler Santiago, Salles measures to what extent a filmmaker is willing to wield directorial needs, and to what extent a subject will yield to these demands. Discussion with Eduardo Thomas and João Moreira Salles. The film...

Saturday June 5, 2010 14:30h	Möglichkeitsraum: "Feminism and Performance Art" Video artist Angela Melitopoulos, whose artistic works have examined the possibilities of the moving image in relation to the working of memory and conceptions of history, presents “Möglichkeitsraum“ (The Blast of the Possible), a temporary set designed as an extended post-production studio. Bettina Knaup engages in a dialogue with the artist while presenting the video archive of the exhibition “re.act.feminism – performance art of the 1960s & 70s today” (curated by Bettina Knaup and Beatrice E. Stammer, 2008): documentations of feminist performances from the 1960s and 1970s and their contemporary “re-enactments”. The film...

Saturday June 5, 2010 16:30h	Documentary Moments "Take 3 - 'Direct', 'Truth' and other Myths: Frederick Wiseman" Frederick Wiseman has scrutinised American life and institutions revealing the mechanisms of administration and hierarchy. As a benchmark in the history of social documentary, as both a school and a genre, Wiseman’s infinitely re-qualified and “direct” cinema is indispensable in any debate on the potential of the documentary image to produce truth. A conversation between Frederick Wiseman and film historian Stella Bruzzis. The film...

Saturday June 5, 2010 21:30h	Authorship. Authority. Authenticity. Recent Documentaries from Elsewhere: "Let Each One Go Where He May" The film follows two brothers along the path their ancestors took in Suriname when they fled from their Dutch slave-masters some three centuries ago.Discussion with Eduardo Thomas and Ben Russel The film...

Sunday June 6, 2010	Interview with Stella Bruzzi In this in-depth interview, film historian Stella Bruzzi and Alan Toner discuss the development of documentary film in relation to advances in film technology, and consider possible perspectives for the future. The interview...

Sunday June 6, 2010	Interview with Eduardo Thomas Curator Eduardo Thomas was presenting contemporary experimental documentaries in his series “authorship”, “authority” and “authenticity” at the Berlin Documentary Forum. He selected films, that erode the seemingly immutable conventions of the consistent abuse of hierarchical structures within the field of documentary filmmaking. In this in-depth interview by Alan Toner, Eduardo Thomas introduces the films he selected, reflects on his series and discusses the questions he encounters when thinking about documentary practices today. The interview...

Sunday June 6, 2010 12:00h	Authorship. Authority. Authenticity. Recent Documentaries from Elsewhere: "Agrarian Utopia" Uruphong Raksasads view of rural Thailand reinterprets our understanding of reality and the idea of certainty. Discussion with Eduardo Thomas and Uruphong Raksasad The film...

Sunday June 6, 2010 16:30h	Missing Image: "Die Flüchtigkeit des Dokumentarischen" A conversation between Florian Schneider and Rick Prelinger, founder of the Prelinger Archives sums up the series "Missing Image". The film...

Sunday June 6, 2010 18:00h	Documentary Moments: "Take 4 - War time / War crime: Marcel Ophuls" Marcel Ophuls uses the documentary interview and montage to review and re-edit historical narration, subverting the hegemony of authority. His epic oeuvre – both in scope and in length – is a landmark of the critical historical essay. The film...