Anniversary celebration

Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art is turning 60! Six whole decades over which the big screen has seen so many things. Cinema, Berlin and the world have all been repeatedly subject to huge changes since then, and the association first founded in 1963 (back then as Friends of the German Film Archive) has remained in constant motion along the way. It started out as a travelling cinema with an eye to the future: comprehensive materials were published to accompany film screenings, and films were also collected. In 1970, the association started running the first cinema of its own in Schöneberg and Arsenal has organized the Berlinale Forum since 1971. The move to the Filmhaus at Potsdamer Platz followed in 2000, which had already been planned since the 1980s but was hugely affected by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Forum Expanded was born in 2006, and the film archive, which had grown considerably in the meantime, moved into new premises at silent green Kulturquartier in 2015. The latest news: our movements aren’t about to stop! In 2025, Arsenal will be leaving Potsdamer Platz to fully move to Wedding. Turning the west wing of silent green, a listed building, into a large cinema auditorium needs time, which is why Arsenal will become a temporary travelling cinema in 2025 once again in order to shine forth in new splendor in 2026.  

All those years and decades were marked by lively exchanges not just with Berlin audiences, but also with a worldwide network of filmmakers, artists, festivals, cinemas, cinematheques and archives, curators, authors, art and cultural institutions and activists from the most far-ranging different areas of society. This is something we really want to celebrate: on June 7th, we’re throwing a party in the garden of silent green (which looks out on the very spot where the future cinema will be).

And this event is just the start of series of further programs on the history, present and future of cinema: stay tuned!

ANNIVERSARY

2 pm and 4 pm 
Guided tours of the Arsenal film archive in the silent green Kulturquartier by members of the Arsenal staff 

6 pm (lawn) 
Opening words
Jörg Heitmann and Bettina Ellerkamp (silent green Kulturquartier)
Anna Mallmann (Managing director of Arsenal)  

Video greeting
State minister Claudia Roth

Speeches
Leonie Baumann (Curator of Hauptstadtkulturfonds)
Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (Artistic director of Arsenal)
Carlo Chatrian (Artistic director of Berlinale)
Ulrike Ottinger (Director)
(with English translation)

Followed by a reception

8 pm (Kuppelhalle)
Opening words
Stefanie Schulte Strathaus

Film screening     
ARSENAL FILMARCHIV 20.12.2022 (Ute Aurand, 2022, 16mm, 3 min)

Panel: What Is Cinema Capable of?
A discussion between Erika und Ulrich Gregor (Friends of the German Film Archive from 1963 to 2004), Tamer El Said (Founder and head of Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre, Cairo/Egypt), Jurij Meden (Austrian Film Museum/Vienna, Austria), Jacqueline Nsiah (The Falcon, Accra/Ghana).
Moderation: Barbara Wurm

10 pm (Kuppelhalle)
Film screening
LINE DESCRIBING A CONE (Anthony McCall, 1973, 16mm, 30 min)

10:30 pm (Kuppelhalle)
DJ Vaginal Davis

Arsenal 60 ff. is funded by the Federal Capital Cultural Fund.