Following the theme of the Magical History Tour this month, we will show two outstanding pairs of comedians: Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy and Karl Valentin & Liesl Karlstadt.
50 Years of Film: Corinne and Arthur Cantrill
With a selection of their works on May 21 & 25, we would like to honor Corinne and Arthur Cantrill, who have been making films together for fifty years now. Their joint filmography comprises more than 150 works ranging from documentaries to experimental films, from multi-screen installations to performances. The main emphasis of their work has been and is on the filmic examination of themes such as landscape, color, light, and the history and technology of film. International retrospectives and exhibitions of their works have led them to Berlin, where they stayed for several months as grant recipients of the DAAD. Several of their films are in the stocks of Arsenal. Among other films, we will screen 4000 FRAMES (1970), HEAT SHIMMER (1978), NOTES ON THE PASSAGE OF TIME (1979), and NOTES ON BERLIN (1986).
We are delighted that the film scholar Dominique Bluher will give an introduction to the event on May 21.
Vaginal Davis presents Rising Stars, Falling Stars
In 1898 the technology lover Edwin S. Porter began working for the Edison Company as a cameraman. While people in Europe experimented with the language of film, he developed the possibilities of “realistic film narration”: A man who has assaulted his wife is tarred and feathered, an eagle grabs the baby of a nuclear family on a weekend excursion, a bear shoots the parent bears to steal its little one, a penniless ex-convict saves the child of a rich family to then abduct it. Silent-movie expert Vaginal Davis guides us through a family program accompanied by the musicians John and Tim Blue. (May 30)
FilmDokument: ALVORADA
When the film, ALVORADA – AUFBRUCH IN BRASILIEN, was nominated for an Oscar in 1962, the rapid economic and social development in Brazil was a topic heatedly debated throughout the world. Hugo Niebeling, working abroad for the first time as a filmmaker , created an extraordinary work. In a furious, and for his contemporaries, disturbing rhythmic collage, he describes the history and development of the country, all the way to Brasilia, the new upcountry capital. The fact that the second part of the film is dedicated to the development toward an industrialized society is due to the checkered history of the film's origin. Was ALVORADA an image film for Mannesmann, a documentary, a collage, or an epos? (Joachim Thommes) An event of CineGraph Babelsberg in cooperation with the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv and the Deutsche Kinemathek. Introduction: Dr. Joachim Thommes (May 17)
From the Oregon Department of Kick Ass
Vanessa Renwick is in Berlin! Her works have to do with body and landscape, with locations and all kinds of borders. She works in an experimental and poetic manner, eluding any sort of objectification and thus taking a distinct stand. CROWDOG (1984/98) is about the American Indian movement, her "Portrait Series" (2005–09) are dedicated to the efforts toward independence in Cascadia based on music from the Pacific North-West. BRITTON, SOUTH DAKOTA (2003) is a structural found footage piece with 60-year-old portraits of street children. The triple projection, HOPE AND PREY (2006), deals with hunting and being hunted in the wilderness. In collaboration with EAST/WEST Project (Portland/Berlin). (May 20)
James Benning: AMERICAN DREAMS
Within the frame of the fourth Gallery Weekend Berlin, neugerriemschneider presents the group show, lost and found, from April 30 through May 29. The exhibition mainly presents cinematic, photographic and sculptural works by artists employing anthropological, ethnographic and archaeological techniques and strategies. In this context, Arsenal will show James Benning's film, AMERICAN DREAMS (LOST AND FOUND) (USA 1984, May 2, 15 & 29), in which the filmmaker presents objects of his collection of Hank Aaron memorabilia. A film about found and lost objects and the confusing spaces in between. The soundtrack consists of alternating recordings of public speeches and excerpts of pop songs from 1954 to 1976, each corresponding with the dates of the shown objects.
Minimal Films
Within the frame of the show, Minimalism Germany 1960s, that is for the first time exclusively dedicated to artists working in Germany between 1954 and 1974 in a reductionist manner, a three-day symposium will take place at Daimler Contemporary. As a prelude to the event, Marc Glöde has curated a film program including some of the most crucial works closely tied to the aesthetic of minimalism or structural film. The selection is not limited to historical positions but includes more recent works obliged to these formal approaches. Alongside works by Peter Roehr, Richard Serra, Robert Morris, and Morgan Fisher, films by Karø Goldt as well as Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller will be presented. (Marc Glöde) (May 13)
UdK Seminar: city country film
Cosplay, parcours, yarn bombing, and other (occasionally more decorative) forms of appropriation bear witness to the urge to utilize the city as a stage. But how is power and where are conflicts revealed? The creative classes, armed with coffee cups, cluster through the image-city. Isn't it the case that the indebted cities have meanwhile become the venues of fights for the "right to the city"? Has the city become "our factory"? Is it all about "condensed diversities" or Profitopolis? The UdK seminar held by Madeleine Bernstorff examines documentary and performative image practices in the city, using historical and contemporary film examples addressing the production of space. Based on camera machines, texts and images, at issue are social and physical landscapes, undefined wastelands and the "second nature" of nature. (Madeleine Bernstorff) (May 11 & 12)
The DEFA-Stiftung presents
On the occasion of actor Winfried Glatzeder's 65th birthday, the DEFA-Stiftung, in the second edition of its monthly film series, will present two films in a double feature: In DAS LAND HINTER DEM REGENBOGEN (D 1990, as guests: Winfried Glatzeder in a conversation with Ralf Schenk), Glatzeder plays the father of the young "rainbow maker," who grows up in a village in the GDR in the early 1950s. Life there is defined by violence and destruction. Together with beautiful Marie, the rainbow maker dreams of fleeing over the rainbow.
Magical History Tour – Make one out of two
It is well known that most films are the result of a joint creative process. As early as the 1920s, film collectives, groups and "factories" were established for not only practical but often also political reasons. In May, the Magical History Tour is dedicated not to the large groups, which we partially already presented under the heading "Pamphlets and Manifestos." The focus is instead on the smallest possible community in the process of creating films: the creative couple that in close cooperation often lasting for years and decades has created a characteristic body of films unmistakably shaped by both persons.