In 1947, avant-garde cinema pioneer Maya Deren notes: “Marxism – only theory of politics which designed a mechanism capable of changing itself – as in the concept of the withering away of the state.” Media scholar Ute Holl begins a paper on this film poet’s theories and conception of cinema, which takes the form of “a sustained intervention in the social and sensory relationships of all those who take part in this ongoing form of communication.” The title of this year’s Forum Expanded programme is taken from this same paper, with “A Mechanism Capable of Changing Itself” referring to the specific agency possessed by cinema, which is especially well expressed in the rich spectrum of forms to be found in documentary works.

Since its foundation, Forum Expanded has always placed a special emphasis on documentary forms. This year once again the term encompasses archival works, fiction and experimental film, in the sense that the selected works function as an expression of a reality that represents a new take on the past while transforming it into a possible future.

Contra-Internet: Jubilee 2033 screening times