Noticias

BERLIN -- The political, the eclectic and the simply weird will be on display in the official lineup for the Berlin International Film Festival's Forum sidebar. Highlights of the 2006 Forum, announced Friday, include My Country, My Country, Laura Poitras' the documentary about the Iraqi parliamentary elections; psychological thriller Strange Circus, from Japanese director Sono Sion; and the informatively titled docu 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep, from British helmer Ben Hopkins. This year's lineup includes features from 29 countries, spanning South Africa (Khalo Matabane's documentary Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon), Ukraine (Happy People, from Aleksandr Shapiro), Korea (So Yong-kim's In Between Days and Shin Dong-il's Host & Guest) and Brazil (Kiko Goifman's Acts of Men). Films by German directors featured in the 2006 Forum include Ulrich Koehler's surreal Windows on Monday and two films that deal with the complicated relationship between Germany and Turkey: Thomas Arslan's From Far Away and Aysun Bademsoy's On the Outskirts. Meanwhile, up-and-coming talent and cutting-edge German filmmaking are the key features of this year's Perspectives on German Cinema, the Berlin sidebar that focuses on young German directors.