Dialogs with Films – Four Decades of Forum

The foundation of the Forum dates back to the crisis of the Berlin Film Festival in 1970, when disputes surrounding the screening of Michael Verhoeven's cinematographic Vietnam parable O.K. led to the break-off of the festival. As early as July 1969, the "Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek" had responded to the weak points of the official festival with a "supplementary program" at the Akademie der Künste. A year later, the "underground festival", as it was called in Berlin's press, moved to the then recently opened Arsenal, where "on the occasion of the Berlin Film Festival" the very first Fassbinder retrospective was shown, among others. The program was so successful that before the end of 1970, the "Friends" were commissioned to organize the "International Forum of New Cinema" as a "parallel event on an equal footing with" the competition.