Berlin International Film Festival Announces Its 2023 Forum Section Lineup
On January 16, 2023, the Berlin International Film Festival (also known as Berlinale) released the complete schedule for its 2023 Forum section. The Forum is the festival's auxiliary for independent and avant-garde films.
Highlights include Allensworth, a new documentary from celebrated American filmmaker James Benning (RR, 13 Lakes), which examines the first African American municipality in California to be self-administered. World premieres at the 53rd Berlinale Forum include the Argentine comedy of errors About Thirty, directed by Martin Shanly (About 12), and the debut film from Rwandan filmmaker Myriam U. Birara, The Bride. Birara’s film takes place three years after the Rwandan genocide and centers on a young woman who is raped and forced into marriage with the perpetrator.
The Forum Special program includes the recently restored 1982 documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine, which follows African American writer James Baldwin as he recalls his time in the American South during the Civil Rights Movement. The 1974 Brazilian film The Devil Queen by Antonio Carlos da Fontoura is also featured. The film is a queer drama produced in Brazil during the nation's military dictatorship and starring Milton Gonçalves, one of the nation's most well-known Black actors, who passed away on May 30, 2022.
The 2023 Berlin international Film Festival runs from February 16-26, 2023.