"For the first time, an international meeting highlights documentary practices across disciplines. BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM demonstrates the increasingly significant role of the documentary in the visual arts, performance, literature and cinema. The new biannual festival at Haus der Kulturen der Welt was conceived by curator Hila Peleg. Its first edition features five days of thematic programmes, devised by curators Catherine David and Okwui Enwezor, video artist Angela Melitopoulos, filmmakers Florian Schneider and Eyal Sivan, and film programmer Eduardo Thomas."

Florian Schneider conducts long-term research on political documentary films for German television produced from the 1960s to the early 1980s. This period marks the peak of a sub-genre of exceptional standing in the history of television that is nearly forgotten today. The project begins with a presentation of films by one of the most idiosyncratic and exacting protagonists from this period, Michael Mrakitsch, about whom Die Zeit once wrote: ‘Mrakitsch – this is the triumph of documentary over fiction.’