The Berlin Documentary Forum (BDF) was a biennale held at the

Haus der Kulturen der Welt The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), in English House of the World's Cultures, in Berlin is Germany's national center for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary arts, with a special focus on non-European cultures and so ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. Interdisciplinary in orientation, it engaged with the 'documentary’ across the fields of film,

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...

, performance, architecture and cultural theory. In its inaugural edition in 2010, the festival featured five days of thematic programming, including exhibitions, screenings, performances, readings and discussions developed and realised by a group of international artists and theoreticians. The festival's second edition in 2012 took a similar approach. A third and last edition took place in spring 2014. In 2016 and 2018, the festival was not able to find both a venue and funding. All three editions of the Berlin Documentary Forum have been conceived by Berlin-based curator Hila Peleg, who has given the festival its theoretically nuanced interpretation, pushing the boundaries of the documentary far beyond its genre definition. She writes, "As the distinctions between reality and fiction, artifact and document are challenged today more than ever, the festival engaged with the documentary not as a mere picturing of reality but as a strategic way to come to terms with reality by means of working with and through images and narratives. The festival thus seeks to explore new modes of reflection and media education in a world where images play a crucial role in the construction of histories, identities and truth.” Held at the historically loaded location of Haus der Kulturen der Welt, the festival also places a particular emphasis on architecture and spatial design, with the aim of generating specific settings for different artistic formats and audiences. In addition to its on-site events, the festival offered an online program which captured selected shows and discussions as well as in-depth interviews and essays on the role of contemporary documentary.

Editions

Berlin Documentary Forum 1 (2–6 June 2010)

Artistic Director: Hila Peleg Participants: Ayreen Anastas, Emily Apter, Ariella Azoulay, Ecke Bonk, Stella Bruzzi, François Bucher, Eduardo Cadava, Tony Cokes,

Catherine David Catherine David (born 1954) is a French art historian, curator and museum director. David was the first woman and the first non-German speaker to curate documenta X in Kassel, Germany (21 June – 28 September 1997). David is currently depu ...

Okwui Enwezor Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the ''ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...

Omer Fast Omer Fast (born in Jerusalem 1972) is an Israeli video artist. Early life and education Born and raised in Israel, Fast spent much of his teenage years in Jericho, New York while his father pursued a medical degree in both countries. He received ...

, Rene Gabri,

Philip Gourevitch Philip Gourevitch (born 1961), an American author and journalist, is a longtime staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' and a former editor of ''The Paris Review''. His most recent book is '' The Ballad of Abu Ghraib'' (2008), an account of Iraq's ...

, Brian Holmes, Thomas Keenan, Bettina Knaup,

Joachim Koester Joachim Koester (born 1962) is a conceptual artist. He works principally in still photography and video. Hal Foster, writing in Artforum, has characterized his work as being "along the borders between documentary and fiction." Over the last fifte ...

Antjie Krog Antjie Krog (born 23 October 1952) is a South African writer and academic, best known for her Afrikaans poetry, her reporting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and her 1998 book '' Country of My Skull''. In 2004, she joined the Arts f ...

, Xavier Le Roy, Chris Marker, Angela Melitopoulos, Marie-José Mondzain, João Moreira Salles,

Edgar Morin Edgar Morin (; ; born Edgar Nahoum; 8 July 1921) is a French philosopher and sociologist of the theory of information who has been recognized for his work on complexity and "complex thought" ( pensée complexe), and for his scholarly contributio ...

, Michael Mrakitsch, Rabih Mroué, Issam Nasser,

Marcel Ophüls Marcel Ophuls (; born 1 November 1927) is a German-French documentary film maker and former actor, best known for his films ''The Sorrow and the Pity'' and '' Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie''. Life and career Ophuls was bo ...

Rick Prelinger Rick Prelinger is an archivist, professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz; writer and filmmaker, and founder of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films acquired by t ...

, Uruphong Raksasad,

Jacques Rancière Jacques Rancière (; born 10 June 1940) is a French philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII: Vincennes—Saint-Denis. After co-authoring ' ...

Alain Resnais Alain Resnais (; 3 June 19221 March 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included ...

, Adrian Rifkin, Ben Russell, Walid Sadek, Lee Anne Schmitt, Florian Schneider, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Eileen Simpson,

Eyal Sivan Eyal Sivan ( he, אייל סיון) is an Israeli documentary filmmaker, theoretician and scholar based in Paris, France. Early life Eyal Sivan is a Filmmaker, Writer and theoretician born in 1964 in Haifa, Israel; raised in Jerusalem; and b ...

, Eduardo Thomas, Ben White,

Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman (born January 1, 1930) is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director. His work is "devoted primarily to exploring American institutions". He has been called "one of the most important and original filmmakers wor ...

and Zinny/Maidagan Architecture: Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik

Berlin Documentary Forum 2 (31 May – 3 June 2012)

Artistic Director: Hila Peleg in collaboration with Catherine David, Antje Ehmann,

Harun Farocki Harun Farocki (9 January 1944 – 30 July 2014) was a German filmmaker, author, and lecturer in film. Early life and education Farocki was born as Harun El Usman FaroqhiMargalit Fox (3 August 2014)''New York Times''. in Neutitschein, which is n ...

Sylvère Lotringer Sylvère Lotringer (15 October 1938 – 8 November 2021) was a French-born literary critic and cultural theorist. Initially based in New York City, he later lived in Los Angeles and Baja California, Mexico.Hultkrans, Andrew"Bookforum talks with ...

, Florian Schneider, Eduardo Thomas. Participants include: Craig Akin, Basma Alsharif, Eric Baudelaire, Neil Beloufa, Elisabetta Benassi, LD Brown, Jacob Ciocci, Mary Helena Clark, Catherine David, Mati Diop, Antje Ehmann, Harun Farocki, Miriam Faßbender, Robert Gardner, David Goldblatt, Thomas Heise, Walter Heynowski/ Gerhard Scheumann, Danièle Huillet/ Jean-Marie Straub, Ito Takashi, Kawase Naomi, Hassan Khan, Thierry Knauff, Joachim Koester, Robert Kramer, Hayou Kwon, Oliver Laric, Laida Lertxundi, Dani Leventhal, Sylvère Lotringer, Makino Takashi, Vincent Meessen, Christine Meisner, Angela Melitopoulos, Shana Moulton, Rabih Mroué, Murata Takeshi, Peter Nestler, Olaf Nicolai, Anders Nilsson, Günter Nitschke, Robert Ochshorn, Melik Ohanian, Charlemagne Palestine, Volker Pantenburg, Christopher Pinney, Astra Price, Steve Reinke, Michael Robinson, Eva Marie Rødbro, Ben Russell, Eszter Salamon, Kenneth Salters, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Florian Schneider, Ella Shohat, Efrat Shvily, Eyal Sivan, Michael Snow, Phil Solomon, Hito Steyerl, William Tatge, Eduardo Thomas, Jeff Wall, Klaus Wildenhahn and Christopher Williams. Architecture: Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik and Kuehn Malvezzi.

Berlin Documentary Forum 3 (29 May – 1 June 2014)

Artistic Director: Hila Peleg Berlin Documentary Forum 3 had an impressive presence of an international audience attending four intense days of screenings, performances, discussions, readings, and exhibitions. The third edition was centred on narrative as an agent in the fabrication of social reality, and included a wide range of contributions from the domains of film, contemporary art, performance, architecture, cultural history, and theory.Some of its manifestations can still be experienced at the HKW or permanently on its website, e.g. Michael Baers' graphic nove
''An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine''
. The extensive publication ''Berlin Documentary Forum 3'' magazine elucidates the seventeen projects making up this edition, and includes essays and conversations contributed by Stella Bruzzi, Sylvère Lotringer, Jimmie Durham, Eran Schaerf, Smadar Dreyfus, Jesse Lerner, Roee Rosen, and Christa Blümlinger.It can be rea
online
Participants: Maria Thereza Alves, Jimmie Durham and Richard Hill, Shaina Anand & Ashok Sukumaran, Michael Baers, Catherine David, Smadar Dreyfus, Harun Farocki, Sylvère Lotringer with Jesse Lerner, Sergio González Rodríguez and Sofia Canales, Rabih Mroué, Roee Rosen, Werner Ružička, Eran Schaerf with Pauline Boudry, Elfriede Jelinek, Eva Meyer, Uriel Orlow and Tim Zulauf, Cornelia Lund, Stefanie Schlüter, Eduardo Thomas & Koyo Yamashita, and others. Architecture: Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik

Notes

References

External links

* * {{cite web , url=https://www.hkw.de/de/programm/projekte/2010/berlin_documentary_forum/berlin_documentary_forum_1.php , title=Berlin Documentary Forum 1 , first=Haus der Kulturen der , last=Welt , website=HKW , accessdate=2019-10-29 , date=29 October 2019 Documentary film festivals in Germany Film festivals in Berlin Summer events in Germany