Like every year in August, the Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art is organizing a summer school. Over the course of three days - this time under the direction of Cornelia Klauß and Florian Wüst - 30 participants, Arsenal staff and invited guests will explore topics at the intersection between theory and practice, past and present.
In 2000, the Filmhaus opened in the Sony Centre and Arsenal, DFFB and the Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen moved in. The fact that three West Berlin film institutions came together in one office building at this location was due to the long-planned project of a joint film space. A "Filmhaus Esplanade" was supposed to be built in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the divided city. But this never happened: the wasteland where the Hotel Esplanade had once stood was privatized without further ado. The vision of a film center on Potsdamer Platz is now coming to an end, and will be moving at the beginning of 2025. After a nomadic year with changing venues, Arsenal will reopen at silent green in Wedding at the end of 2025/beginning of 2026.
On this occasion, this year's Arsenal summer school will focus on changes in Berlin's urban space and cinema history, from the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 to the present. With the participants, we want to pay special attention to the relationship between East and West, which was reflected in the development of Arsenal, as well as of the Babylon cinema on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, which was established as the second municipal cinema in the 1990s. With experimental and documentary films, photographs and archive material, as well as a walk through the city, we will explore the visible and invisible memory landscape of Berlin's new Mitte district, which is so symbolic of the current state of German history.
With contributions by:
Cynthia Beatt, Lilly Grote, Cornelia Klauß, Gerd Kroske, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Florian Wüst
The events will be held in German.
Anyone interested can register under summerschool@arsenal-berlin.de
The number of participants is limited.
