In July, we would like to invite you to discover films from Cuba beyond salsa, folklore and the romanticism of ruins. The program offers an overview of 50 years of Cuban film production across all genres – it is no coincidence that this span of time corresponds with that of the revolution: Only with the law through which the revolutionaries founded the ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry) on 03/24/1959, did the history of independent Cuban cinematography commence. The name of the institution was meant as a program, the first preamble being: "Film as Art", as distinguished from film as a commodity.
Dialogs with Films – Four Decades of Forum
The foundation of the Forum dates back to the crisis of the Berlin Film Festival in 1970, when disputes surrounding the screening of Michael Verhoeven's cinematographic Vietnam parable O.K. led to the break-off of the festival. As early as July 1969, the "Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek" had responded to the weak points of the official festival with a "supplementary program" at the Akademie der Künste. A year later, the "underground festival", as it was called in Berlin's press, moved to the then recently opened Arsenal, where "on the occasion of the Berlin Film Festival" the very first Fassbinder retrospective was shown, among others. The program was so successful that before the end of 1970, the "Friends" were commissioned to organize the "International Forum of New Cinema" as a "parallel event on an equal footing with" the competition.
Sweden for Everyone
On July 1, Sweden will assume the Chair of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The Swedish Embassy takes this as an occasion to organize several cultural programs. At Arsenal, a marathon will take place on June 30 – more than 24 hours traversing Swedish film history – moderated by film journalist and Radio EINS presenter Knut Elstermann. But we will already start off on June 27 & 28 with elevator music at the Filmhaus. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Anna Svensdotter (flute) and Thomas Jäderlund (saxophone) will accompany the elevator guests from the bottom to top floor (and back again).
Focus on Potsdamer Platz
Center of a metropolis, ruined landscape, Berlin Wall, no-man's-land, huge construction site, tourist attraction: the past 100 years of history have left their mark on Potsdamer Platz. From Thursdays through Sundays at five pm, we'll be screening films that, through the variety in their aesthetics and content, are atmospherically dense descriptions of a city caught in the vicissitudes of history.
Film Dialogs: REQUIEM
This marks the start of the series "Film Dialogs", which on a two-monthly basis invites filmmakers to talk about one of the films presented in the exhibition spaces of the Museum für Film und Fernsehen, followed by a screening. Director Hans-Christian Schmid and set designer Christian M. Goldbeck will talk about their work on REQUIEM (D 2006, June 18). Based on a real case that was put on record in a small Franconian town in 1970, the film deals with Christian fundamentalism and bigotry. While studying, a young woman from a strict Catholic family gets into an identity crisis that turns into religious delusion. With this award-winning film, Schmid succeeded, in aesthetic terms as well, in reconstructing the West German provincial climate of the 1970s. (Anke Hahn)
Rising Stars, Falling Stars
NORRTULLSLIGAN (The Norrtull Gang) belongs among the most courageous and enjoyable films of the European decade. The intertitles are reflecting a person’s thoughts and memories. The four who make up the "gang" take city life in their stride. One loses her job after campaigning for strike action at the office. Another resigns after the boss has flirted with her once too often. Followed by drinks in the Red Foyer. (29.6.)
Premiere SUPER ART MARKET
The most recent film marketed by Arsenal distribution is Zoran Solomun's SUPER ART MARKET (2009), the premiere of which is on June 25 at Arsenal in the presence of the director. The film deals with the marketing of contemporary art, with which more money has been made than ever before from 2002 to 2008. The hunger for modern art at art fairs around the world seemed insatiable. A new money aristocracy speculated with pictures and sculptures as if they were stocks. The true protagonists of this development, however, were gallerists and art dealers. SUPER ART MARKET focuses on five gallerists: Leo König from the USA, Judy Lybke from Deutschland, Lorenz Helbling from China, Mihai Pop from Romania, and Laura Bartlett from England. The end of the shooting coincided with the commencing financial crisis in the summer of 2008 – in autumn of that year, some galleries had already gone bankrupt.
Arabs and Terrorism
The Berlin research program "Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe" (EUME), located at the Wissenschaftskolleg, and the "Zentrum Moderner Orient" present as a Berlin premiere a cinematic research project, the documentary WHAT IS SAID ABOUT ARABS AND TERRORISM (USA 2006) by Bassam Haddad. The film critically examines the Western discourse (especially in the USA under Bush) that implicitly and often also explicitly insinuates a connection between Arabs and "terrorism". It does so by means of interviews with well-known persons from the media, from politics and science, as well as with people in the street. In the edit, the statements from various sides of the ideological divide turn into a sort of dialog. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker Bassam Haddad, moderated by Sinan Antoon, currently EUME Fellow. The event is in English. (June 15)
Exhibiting Film History – A colloquium of the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen (18.–20. 6.)
Film museums are concerned with preserving and presenting film history. But how can a museum do justice to the special features of the medium of film with its specific temporal and technical preconditions? How can film be exhibited as both an artistic product and a cultural and historical document, and how should it be contextualized? How do film museums meet the in part contradictory requirements of collecting and preserving, on the one hand, and presenting and conveying, on the other? How do they contribute to film-historical canonizations – and what is their relation to the "fringes" and "undercurrents" of a for the most part nationally oriented presentation of film history?
Art of Mediation (7): Films about films and film restoration
To preserve films means to perform work on the hidden body of an immaterial art. The DVD, in particular, has drawn attention to this special form of dealing with cinema: A real standard for reproduction reports has been developed for reissues that can convey the basics of chemical-mechanical prerequisites, diverse approaches to an archival practice and conflicting attitudes to the history of film. Martin Koerber of the Deutsche Kinemathek will address the broad range of topics relevant to restoration. Afterwards, the film PABST WIEDER SEHEN (D 1997) by Jacobsen, Koerber and Perraudin will be shown, which, based on concrete examples of the work of G.W. Pabst, demonstrates the most important aspects of film restoration.