From May 1 until June 8 we will show films by writer, director, producer and activist Tatjana Turanskyj on our streaming platform www.arsenal-3-berlin.de. Tatjana Turanskyj started out working collectively in the areas of performance and theater, made videos and staged performances with Hangover Ltd., and cofounded the OK-GIRL$ Gallery before founding a production company with a focus on feminist auteur films. The feature films she has created since then, beginning with EINE FLEXIBLE FRAU, follow a playful and exuberant approach to address discourses on gender relations and changes in the world of work. Her artistic practice goes hand in hand with her commitment to feminist film politics, and she is one of the cofounders of the Pro Quote Regie initiative.
EINE FLEXIBLE FRAU / THE DRIFTER (Tatjana Turanskyj, D 2010, 97 min)
Greta: 40, an architect, mother of a 12-year-old son, separated from her husband, recently unemployed. She starts working in a call center but is soon dismissed once again. She does everything in her power to keep hanging on in there, starts drinking and drifts through the city, torn between the pressure to confirm and the spirit of contradiction. A Woman Under the Influence, in Berlin at the beginning of the 21st century. The so-called New Berlin, moving from the wastelands to the town houses. Flexible, globalized capitalism. Post-feminism. And the respective vocabulary that goes with it: fragments of theory, empty phrases, buzz words, quotes. A woman with a vision of urban space, of herself, of her profession, of her life with her child. But those aren't the actual circumstances. Greta at parties, at the call center, at sessions with a job application coach, with her son, with her ex-colleagues, at the job center, at bars, walking through the city. Fierce, hysterical, stubborn, almost in a trance, fractious, uninhibited, effusive, desperately unhappy. Situations, encounters, performances. More of a trip than a narrative. Snap-shots of a woman’s fragile contemporary life (at work). A flexible woman, an All-Around Reduced Personality. (Birgit Kohler)
TOP GIRL ODER LA DÉFORMATION PROFESSIONNELLE (Tatjana Turanskyj, D 2014, 94 min)
Helena, 30, a single mother with an 11-year-old daughter, is a moderately successful actress who earns a living as an escort in the sex industry. Her relationship with her own mother, a singing teacher, is tense, and she’s also increasingly annoyed with her job. Meeting David offers her an opportunity.
Snapshots from the brittle contemporary biography of a working woman, part 2: Helena at work, decked out in latex, leather and fishnet stockings, batting her eyelashes and brandishing sex toys. Male clients with various sexual predilections. A casting call where she’s supposed to play an ‘uncontrollably horny’ woman. A post-feminist lecture on the body, getting old and cosmetic surgery. And again and again, sex as a performance, relationships of a purely economic status. Body discourses. The mother stands for a time in which ‘female self-actualisation’ meant something very different. The little daughter recites a poem by Heinrich Heine. Helena finally comes up with a new sexual service; when the hunt is over, the women have been brought down and the men crow in triumph, there she stands, beautiful, severe and implacable. Like an absolute ruler. (Birgit Kohler)
ORIENTIERUNGSLOSIGKEIT IST KEIN VERBRECHEN / DISORIENTATION IS NOT A CRIME (Marita Neher, Tatjana Turanskyj, D 2016, 76 min)
Lena (Nina Kronjäger) is a journalist in crisis. After conducting research in Berlin on the topic of European security policy, she sets off to Thrace in the north of Greece, the borderland between Bulgaria and Turkey. Her destination: the newly built security fence separating Greece from Turkey. By chance, she meets Amy (Anna Schmidt), an activist who joins Lena on her research, partly out of boredom but also out of curiosity. The film is the story of an encounter between two women, both traveling in Greece but with diverging ambitions. From the friction between their two perspectives emerges a road movie through the Greek hinterlands, in search of invisible borders and an approach to our present times. (Grandfilm)
girls & boys in history I– EMANZIPATION (Tatjana Turanskyj, 2000, 7 min)
girls & boys in history II– MÄNNERHORRORFRAUEN (Tatjana Turanskyj, 2001, 7 min)
girls & boys in history III – REAL EXISTIERENDE GESCHLECHTERVERHÄLTNISSE (Tatjana Turanskyj, 2001, 7 min)
The series girls & boys in history is a surreal historical document. “For twenty years, little or nothing has changed in Germany when it comes to equality. Band together!” (Tatjana Turanskyj)
PETRA (Hangover Ltd. (Christine Groß, Sophie Huber, Ute Schall, Tatjana Turanskyj, Claudia Splitt), 2003, 70 min)
“A bathroom serves as the stage for 70 minutes of lustful delirium, between reminiscences of Petra von Kant and lesbian porn.” (Elisabeht Lequeret, Cahiers du Cinéma)
REMAKE (Hangover Ltd. (Christine Groß, Sophie Huber, Ute Schall, Tatjana Turanskyj, Claudia Splitt), 2004, 20 min)
REMAKE is a remake of Faces (John Cassavetes, USA 1968), aiming to relay that 1960s gender psychogram into our present time: an evening in a bar, four women, one man, vodka and music.
I’M A DANCER (Tatjana Turanskyj, 2008, 6 min)
A dance video: A faun in disguise meets a good-humored dancer in the forest. It’s New Year’s Day and you have three wishes.
JANE, GENDER COACH (Tatjana Turanskyj, 2012, 3 min)
From a dark stage, gender coach Jane rallies an unseen audience. A study for Corporate, the third part of the Women and Work trilogy.
Thanks to Filmgalerie 451, Neue Visionen Filmverleih, Grandfilm.
arsenal 3 is available for a monthly fee of 11€. Information and registration here.
