In this month's Filmmakers' Choice session on May 21, Bärbel Freund presents films by Karl Heil, Reinhard Kahn and Michel Leiner. Karl Heil's MMH (1981) introduces us to several young people in search of happiness in the West Berlin of the time, their existences in this summery, urban space becoming tangible in the process. The adventurous, defiant and dreamily playful way in which Karl Heil discovered the medium of film for himself is shared by Reinhard Kahn and Michel Leiner, both from Frankfurt. PLATZWUNDER (1983/84) by Kahn / Leiner draws on Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg. In RÜCKE VOR AUF: FRÜHLINGSMORGEN (1988/89) and ETWAS AUS GLAS (1989/95), both by Reinhard Kahn, Hamburg and its surroundings also enchant us. The characters radiate with a fine soulful aura from the deepest twilight: a restless sense of yearning, departure and blessed uselessness (Peter Nau).

"I think of Canada as female. All the art I've been doing or will be doing is about Canada. I may tend to overly identify with Canada." (Joyce Wieland, 1931–1998) A sailboat passes by and the word SAILBOAT can be read: the structuralist film reflects the relationship between static text and the moving images – until Hollis Frampton casually steps in front of the running camera from off-screen and a seemingly strictly composed work briefly becomes a home movie. There, at Lake Ontario, the two of them also shot A&B IN ONTARIO (1966–84), a sort of game of hide and seek with the Bolex camera. These films, as well as Wieland's complex reflection on Canada LA RAISON AVANT LA PASSION / REASON OVER PASSION (1969) and 1933, a looped street scene in New York (1967), were obtained by deceased Arsenal staff member Alf Bold in 1993 for our collection. After Joyce Wieland herself died in 1998, we were able to use the experimental film fund bequeathed to us by Alf Bold to obtain seven further films of hers. It gives us great pleasure that the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC) has now released the complete works of this outstanding artist as a DVD box-set. We will be presenting it from May 1-3 together with the CFMDC and the Canadian Embassy in Berlin. Lauren Howes (CFMDC) and the film scholars and curators Tabea Metzel (FU Berlin), Robin Curtis (NYU Berlin) and Madeleine Bernstorff will introduce the individual films and conclude the series by discussing Wieland's entire oeuvre. Tickets for the whole three-day program are available.

Why do we use a camera? Are we researching the social sphere as Robert Flaherty once suggested to Joris Ivens? In CINEMAFIA, Jean Rouch, Joris Ivens and Henri Storck talk about these matters. Other films that deal with these questions are Jean Rouch’s PAM KUSO KAR about rituals in Niger and PAS TOUT by Isabelle Prim and Ludovic Burel, a "family film" that takes place in an abandoned factory. From 1968 to 1970, the Medvedkin Groups used strategies to treat political experiences in a cine-matic manner. LES TROIS QUARTS DE LA VIE was shot by young employees at a Peugeot factory. They received support from Chris Marker and Bruno Muel. (Eléonore de Montesquiou)

This month, Gusztáv Hámos and Katja Pratschke present photo-films that examine memory and time and make us think of cinema. In LA JETÉE (Chris Marker, F 1962) the survivors of a nuclear war conduct time travel experiments with a prisoner. By remembering a particularly strong mental image, the face of a woman, the man manages to travel back in time and meet her. In (NOSTALGIA) (Hollis Frampton, USA 1971) a voice describes 13 photos. After a while, the pictures are burnt and transformed to ashes. Commentary and images are shifted tectonically. In FIASKO (Janet Riedel, K. Pratschke, G. Hámos, D 2010) Steinig, a survivor of Auschwitz, arrives in a hauntingly strange but also strangely familiar place, experiences déja-vu and gets caught in the maelstrom of a convoluted system (that of Stalinist Hungary). The film is told through split screen photography. (March 20, 7 pm).

In our new series, Anja Czioska presents films which expand our perception thanks to the artistic medium of film. With its radical editing and use of impressionist elements of style, MÉNILMONTANT (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926) pre-empted the Nouvelle Vague movement of the 1960s. The construed surrealist reality of Maya Deren's AT LAND (USA 1944) leads to an expanded and newly-experienced space/time dimension. In his film diaries, Jonas Mekas captures images of his reality with a Bolex camera and changes them such that a filmic poem emerges. JONAS MEKAS, FRIDAY THE 13TH OCT N.Y.C. (Anja Czioska) is an unedited performative film sketch that builds up into a Lithuanian dance. "ONE PUSSY SHOW (Anja Czioska) is a trance-like performance film shot in fast motion, in which I put on the clothes from my 1988/89 collection and take them off, with 60s music in the background."(Anja Czioska)

In our new series, filmmakers whose works we distribute present films, both old and new, by their filmmaking colleagues. Karø Goldt is next in line on January 9 with a set of films that are all about listening. Silent films such as BARN RUSHES by Larry Gottheim or TAILS by Paul Sharits have imagery that suggests sound, while EAUX D'ARTIFICE by Kenneth Anger and ALL MY LIFE by Bruce Baillie show the music. What is special is that the silence in the cinema means that the audience's attention can literally be heard or listened to. On top of the 16-mm film classics, Goldt will show her own videos. "Some benefits of listening are presented: as are side effects, which reflect qualities often thought of as being among the most desirable human qualities … If we want to participate, to be connected, we must learn as a priority to listen once again. We need to rediscover The Lost Art of Listening". (R. Glanville) (9.1.)

On December 19, Lior Shamriz presents Robert Kramer's ROUTE ONE / USA (France 1989): after a long absence, Kramer and Paul Mc Isaac return to the USA and travel down the East Coast along Route 1 from Maine to Florida. While Paul Mc Isaac plays a returnee looking for a job, this is actually more of an excuse to take a look over his shoulder at society and reflect upon the people who share their daily lives and its philosophy with the camera. It is an America in which factory work still forms a substantial part of society and the civil rights movement is still fresh in people’s memories.

The amateurs: grand gestures, murder and music. As the start of new film series, filmmakers whose works we distribute will be presenting films both old and new by their filmmaking colleagues. Eva Heldmann and Sabine Schöbel are setting the ball rolling on Novemver 21: "The grand feelings and gestures of Hollywood and the world of (musical) theatre and how these are assimilated in anarchistic fashion in the realm of experimental cinema are our theme. In DER BRÄUTIGAM, DIE KOMÖDIANTIN UND DER ZUHÄLTER (West Germany 1968) Straub/Huillet document a performance by the Munich antiteater. They present a eulogy to love in opposition to Fassbinder's libertarian disenchantment. HEINRICH (Sabine Schöbel, Germany 2011) dissects the idea of the singing hero. In 1933 (Joyce Wieland, USA 1967), a street in New York rehearses the same performance ten times over. When Frieda Grafe wrote about NEURASIA (Werner Schroeter, West Germany 1968), it was all about "idols, devotion, mythology, and ecstasy. It's only about a final significance, about the highest degree of meaning." BACK TO NATURE (George Kuchar, USA 1967) is an unabashed homage to Hollywood.

On the occasion of the symposium "Dialogues with Films – Four Decades of the Forum" (2009) new prints of selected classics from the history of the Berlinale Forum section were made that have found their way into our collection. These include the BILL DOUGLAS TRILOGY (My Childhood, My Ain Folk, My Way Home, 1972-1978), D'EST by Chantal Akerman (France/Belgium 1993), SO IS THIS by Michael Snow (Canada 1982), DIE ALLSEITIG REDUZIERTE PERSÖNLICHKEIT – REDUPERS (The All-Around Reduced Personality: Outtakes) by Helke Sander (FRG 1977) und NÔ by Sharon Lockhart (USA 2003).