May 09, 2019
Cristina Nord Appointed as New Head of the Berlinale Forum

Joint Press Release of the Berlin International Film Festival and the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art

The film critic, writer, and curator Cristina Nord will assume the directorship of the Forum section starting on August 1, 2019. Since it was founded in 1971, the Forum has taken place as part of the Berlin International Film Festival, curated and organised independently by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art.

Cristina Nord (born in 1968) served as film editor for the cultural section of the daily “taz. die tageszeitung” in Berlin from 2002 to 2015. Her writing deals with a broad spectrum of film forms from the present and from film history. Alongside her award-winning print media work, Cristina Nord has been active as a lecturer and curator for a variety of institutions, including the Freie Universität Berlin, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and the Duisburger Filmwoche. After moving to the Goethe-Institut in 2015, Cristina Nord was the Brussels-based director of programming focusing on southwestern Europe, where she conceived and realised projects from all cultural sectors, all the while remaining closely associated with film and cinema.

The Arsenal’s board of directors, consisting since 2004 of Milena Gregor, Birgit Kohler, and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, in coordination with the Berlinale management and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media is delighted to welcome Cristina Nord as head of the Forum. “Her profile makes her the ideal candidate to pursue and further shape the Forum’s longstanding emphasis on experimentation and discourse in close association with the activities of the Arsenal, bringing in new and unique impulses. Alongside her extensive knowledge of contemporary international cinema as well as film history, she brings diverse curatorial experiences with her, and is not only familiar with film-cultural questions, but with a variety of current discourses. We very much look forward to the collaboration that begins with the preparations for the 50th anniversary of the Forum,” say the Arsenal’s board of directors.

“The Berlinale Forum offers its audience the opportunity to discover young, experimental, and essayistic forms of film. It provides space for many different varieties of cinema, thus opening up new modes for perception. Its international approach, its awareness of film history, and the joy in thinking with and in film while reflecting on society are exemplary. Tying in with this legacy and leading it into the future under today’s changing conditions is a task that I look forward to with great pleasure. I am grateful to the Arsenal’s board of directors for the faith that they have in me,” comments Cristina Nord.

Forum Expanded will continue to be directed by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, who initiated the programme in 2006 along with Anselm Franke.

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May 9, 2019