A veritable premiere: Erika Gregor is celebrating her birthday with a program of shorts at Arsenal! We are extremely pleased to share this special evening with her and are looking forward to the event to which everyone is warmly invited. As co-founder of the Friends of the German Film Archive (now Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art) and the International Forum of New Cinema, a long-time curator of Arsenal and a member of the Forum’s selection committee, she has shaped the institution in many ways. For well over four decades, she has brought films and filmmakers across borders, continents and other barriers to Berlin, organizing impressive programs and festivals, publishing works, building up a film collection, taking part in political (film) debates and preserving her love for cinema as well as her belief that films can effect long-term change. Her memory (films, festivals, encounters, books and poems) is as phenomenal as her extensive treasure trove of stories is inexhaustible and pointed. The short films of Dorothee Wenner (on our website) give an illuminating and cheerful impression of this, as the birthday evening will surely do on 26. May. Erika Gregor will present a program of short films by Germaine Dulac, Agnès Varda, Anita Thacher, Standish Lawder and Santiago Álvarez. There will also be speeches by Helke Sander and Jutta Brückner. If anyone would like to give Erika Gregor a present, apart from his/her presence, then please make a donation for the acquisition of prints instead of buying flowers. There will be a donations box and Erika Gregor will gladly discuss her list of priorities for the films that could come into question over a glass of wine. (26.5.)
