What can cinema do?

With its "What can cinema do?" program, Arsenal is reflecting in conjunction with its 60th birthday this year and its 2025 move to silent green Kulturquartier, on the past, present and future of film and cinema. The concrete questions are about the potential of cinema with regard to the crises of the present and what spaces for thought and action it can offer. The aim is to go beyond an assessment of the current situation, to develop visions, to form communities of solidarity within and outside the cinema, and to engage in an open discourse on strategies and utopias. Guests from various disciplines will shape this discourse by addressing the question "What can cinema do?" with a lecture on a film they have selected themselves. Girish Shambu (film critic) and Rasha Salti (scholar, author, and art and film curator) will kick off the debate and will be followed in the coming months by the writer Ulrich Peltzer (21.11.), the philosopher Bernd Scherer (13.12.), and the political scientist Nikita Dhawan (January 2024).

The program curated by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and Birgit Kohler is part of ARSENAL 60 ff. and was made possible by a grant from the Capital Cultural Fund.