The Delphi Table

Since 1971, Arsenal has organized the Forum section of the Berlinale. For decades, the discussions in Delphi Cinema were legendary: When a film ended, a table was carried onto the stage and a moderator, in most cases a translator, and of course the filmmaker would sit down to take audience questions, with sometimes very heated discussions ensuing. Occasionally, there were group discussions, about experimental film or in connection with a country’s political crisis. Almost all the discussions were recorded, at first on reel-to-reel tape and later on cassette. In the 1990s, discussions at Arsenal Cinema outside of the Berlinale began to be recorded, a practice that continues to this day. During the lockdown, Arsenal projectionists digitized these recordings. The result is an archive that not only says something about the reception history of hundreds of films, but above all about cinema as a social space, a space for discourse, and about film talks as a cultural technique that has drastically changed over the decades. At migas, a listening bar, a two-hour audio montage will be played, giving an impression of debate culture in the 1970s and 1980s.