The reason why acetate film material breaks down is “vinegar syndrome”, a chemical decomposition process that cannot be stopped once it’s begun. As prints affected by it are “contagious”, they are isolated and removed from circulation. The archive of the Oberhausen Short Film Festival also houses numerous quarantined film prints of this kind. Four of them will be screened here as a surprise program: CZERWONE I CZARNE by Witold Giersz, CLAY by Eliot Noyes, ČEKAJ Í NA GODOTA by Juraj Jakubisko, and PANC by Sabina Pop. The screening will be followed by a conversation about the tragedy, humour and beauty of transient film prints with Markus Ruff (Arsenal) and Shelly Silver, whose films This Film and Turn are currently being subjected to a controlled vinegar syndrome experiment as part of the Stoffwechsel project. re-selected is a project by the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen and Arsenal and, like Stoffwechsel, part of Archive außer sich. (th) (7.8.)
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