The Forum Section
A Festival within a Festival

Step into the Berlinale Forum, the festival’s hub for bold and unconventional cinema. Our author, a program advisor, takes you through the 2025 lineup - where the unexpected meets the provocative. As Forum enters its 55th year, it remains as insightful, edifying, and young as ever.

By Srikanth Srinivasan

The Forum section of the Berlinale has long been something of a festival within a festival. Officially known as Internationales Forum des Jungen Films (International Forum of New Cinema), the section was founded in 1971 by the group Freunde der deutschen Kinemathek (now Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst) to explore new forms of cinematic expressions and innovation burgeoning across the world.

Origins and Evolution

Originally conceived as a rival festival that would challenge the Berlinale – plagued by controversy the previous year and deemed conservative in its selection – the section came under the organisational umbrella of the Berlinale after negotiations. Even so, Forum has maintained autonomy and independence from its parent body in terms of its selection and programming for decades.

While operating independently, the Forum section is closely connected to the Arsenal Institute, which is involved in distribution, archival and year-round film exhibitions. Select films programmed at Forum are picked up for distribution by Arsenal, offering wider circulation and larger exposure to titles that may otherwise be viewed as commercially vulnerable. Forum Expanded, an independently curated sidebar, specialises in shorter format experimental films, installations and other cross-disciplinary projects.

The 2025 Line-up and Indian Representation

One of Forum’s focus points has been cinema from the Global South, including India. Over the years, the section has programmed over sixty Indian films, including Mani Kaul’s Duvidha (1973), Kumar Shahani’s Tarang (1985), Deepa Dhanraj’s Kya Hua Is Shahar Ko? (1986), Mrinal Sen’s Mahaprithivi (1992), Mani Ratnam’s Alai Payuthey (2001), Ameer’s Paruthiveeran (2008), Pushpendra Singh’s Lajwanti (2014) and Amit Masurkar’s Newton (2017). The 2024 edition featured P.S. Vinothraj’s Kottukkaali and Siddharth Jatla’s In the Belly of the Tiger.

Among the thirty features to be presented in the 2025 edition of Forum, the sole Indian entry is Natesh Hegde’s Vaghachipani (Tiger’s Pond), the first Kannada-language work to be shown at the Berlinale. Set in a sleepy village in the Western ghats, Hegde’s second feature (after 2021’s Pedro) follows the machinations of an influential landlord as he tries to win a local election through power and persuasion. Seductively shot on 16mm stock, Vaghachipani features Achyuth Kumar, Dileesh Pothan and the filmmaker himself in important roles. The film’s multiple screenings will be followed by Q&A sessions with the cast and crew.

Submissions and Selection Process

Submissions for Forum open in September every year, along wider Berlinale sections. Filmmakers and entrants can choose to have their work considered for Forum along with other sidebars. Each section has specific eligibility criteria. Forum, for instance, requires its submissions to be longer than 60 minutes and available for either (a) world premiere (the film hasn’t been shown publicly anywhere, in any form), (b) European premiere (the film has been shown, but only outside Europe) or (c) international premiere (the film has been shown in its home country, but not outside – not applicable for German titles).

Once submitted, the films are viewed by a team of pre-selectors or programme advisors. The recommended titles are then watched and discussed by the central committee under artistic director Barbara Wurm, heading the section since the 2024 edition. While less than one per cent of the submitted entries make it to the final line-up, submitting a film can be a valuable experience for a filmmaker. It helps create awareness of one’s work both within the festival and the international programming community.

The Forum Experience

For Berlinale attendees, the internal distinctions between sections may not necessarily be evident. Reflecting on Forum’s role in 1997, some quarter century after its inception, Ulrich Gregor, one of the section’s co-founders, wrote: Walking into a Forum screening, what a viewer could be sure of is a novel experience: unfamiliar, perplexing, provocative, but also insightful and edifying. Entering its 55th year, the International Forum of New Cinema promises to be as young as ever.