The residents of a soon to be demolished building have set up a temporary autonomous zone to declare war on a world where utopia and poetry have gone astray. They are a kind of Situationist urban guerilla, spending their days creating havoc at both a material and immaterial level. They recite, declare, dis- cuss, perform and console. A woman is kidnapped, close combat is mimed, pubic hair formed into a mustache. Many of their joy- fully nonsensical actions go round in circles, a sign already of their ironic self-reflection: When it comes down to it, they are merely an aesthetic imitation of the slogans, gestures and postures of ʼ60s and ʼ70s political and artistic practice. Ultimately, the residents announce the end of their own avant-garde movement and abandon their building to demolition. With the same pleasure in creating deliberate confusion, this imaginative and wonderfully photographed film experiments with form and content. Riddled with discursive and filmic references, it is fully aware of its own limitations whilst still stridently putting forward the thesis that in each repetition there remains something of the havoc-creating power of the original gesture.

We are delighted to present Stefan Landorf‘s multi-layered debut AUFNAHME (EMERGENCY ROOM) on our VOD channel at realeyz.tv. The director – a former doctor himself – turns his attention to a Berlin hospital. Medical terms such as ward visits, doctor’s rounds, anamnesis, clinical patterns can also be applied to the film’s structure, which makes the institution appear like an organism being given a check up and prodded in various ways.

Saba Sahar has been a policewoman for 18 years in Kabul. But she is also an actress, director and producer. As a representative of the state executive, but also a filmmaker, the central theme of her work is the everyday violence against Afghan women. In Traumfabrik Kabul Sebastian Heidinger portrays a protagonist who is surprising in many ways: who stands up for her cause with impressive matter-of-factness, even though in doing so she openly contradicts Afghan family law. Sahar’s great strength is her unshakeable passion for her shattered country: in a place where women’s rights are trampled underfoot she uses film as a weapon for hitting back. Traumfabrik Kabul takes an unusual look at a setting that is a reliable guarantee for sad news. In its encounters with Sahar, but also in entertaining clips from her work this documentary gives encouragement with its refreshingly different approach. One of her films shows a superheroine rescuing a woman from the clutches of her male adversary using martial arts techniques. Saba Sahar is no superheroine in real life – but she is a heroine who gives hope.

In 2009, Arsenal and Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) presented "LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! Five Flaming Days in a Rented World", which was curated by Susanne Sachsse, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and Marc Siegel. Featuring 50 international artists and academics, the event was dedicated to the underground pio-neer and queer icon Jack Smith (1932–89). The superstar Mario Montez, who had stood on stage once again for LIVE FILM, and the participating director Ulrike Ottinger received an honorary Teddy award at the Berlinale. And now there's more big news. On the initiative of Jerry Tartaglia and thanks to the passion and drive of many, the Barbara Gladstone Gallery’s Jack Smith Archive is making brand new 16-mm prints available for distribution. Right on time for Camp / Anti-Camp we will be able to present them to the public on April 13 and hope they will grace many screens in future.

We are very happy to present two new films on our VoD channel at realeyz.tv: AFTER EFFECT by Stephan Geene tells a love story trapped between art, cultural capital and marketing. LIFETIMESHORT by Gesine Danckwart is an entertaining, self-deprecating film about a day in the life of six women making yet another attempt to salvage their lives.

The following films are also still available for streaming on our VoD channel: Harun Farocki's TRANSMISSION (Germany, 2007), BULGARIA OF ALL PLACES (Germany/Bulgaria 2006) by Christo Bakalski, SUNNY LAND (Germany, South Africa 2010) by Aljoscha Weskott and Marietta Kesting, SUPER ART MARKET (Germany 2009) by Zoran Solomun and Angelika Levi’s films MEIN LEBEN TEIL 2 (Germany 2003) and ABSENT PRESENT (Spain, Senegal, Germany 2010).

Jin, a bright-eyed six-year-old, lives with her mother and little sister, Bin, in a cramped apartment in Seoul, South Korea. When their mother decides to go look for their estranged father, Jin and Bin are forced to stay with their alcoholic Big Aunt for the summer. The girls are given a piggy bank with a promise from their mother that she will return when it is full. After their mother fails to return, Jin and her sister are forced to move to a farm owned by their grandparents. It is through this journey that Jin comes to learn the importance of family bonds. Inspired by her grandmother’s determination and hard work, Jin learns that taking care of her younger sister is actually a way of filling the hole in her heart.

Since last February, a selection of films from the arsenal distribution range has been available at ARTE Creative, an interactive platform that also encompasses experimental film and video work. Every month, a new arsenal distribution film is added to the channel, which is then available for streaming over a one-year period. Gheith Al-Amine’s ONCE UPON A SIDEWALK ist he latest addition to our channel. This video explores the representation of women as objects of desire and questions the medium of video itself by repeatedly manipulating its parameters. Geith Al-Amine’s works "T.S.T.L" and "King Lost His Tooth" were shown in the Forum Expanded programm of the 2012 Berlinale.

Roger teaches yoga. The relationship with his daughter Zoe, who has just finished her military service, is put under strain by her love for Maya, a young woman who is allegedly a certified schizophrenic. There is tension with the participants of his yoga class when Roger repeatedly comes late and brings along a stray dog. When Roger, Zoe and Maya take on a renovation job on a middle-class home nothing goes to plan and the whole affair is wrought with tension. Three people on the edge: of society, of control, of strength and of collapse. The different realities that Roger tries to get to grips with, metaphors for Maya’s schizophrenia catch up with him in his yoga class when his belief that "we can make our own time" reaches its limits just as fast as his "feel united with the world around you" notion clashes with social reality. For his feature debut, Zbigniew Bzymek has found a form that is remote from social drama – the outline of a story is sketched in a non-dramatic and non-linear way by scenes that are sometimes separated by fades to black. With an idiosyncratic floating atmosphere and one of the most long-lasting guitar improvisations since "Dead Man."

SOLAR SYSTEM is a film about disappearance. It is a portrait of daily life in the indigenous community of the Kollas in Tinkunaku in the mountains of northern Argentina. It tells the story of Ramona and Viviano in the valley of Blanquito and at high altitude in Santa Cruz, of the deaf Fortunato and of Louis’ family, of Soto the shepherd, and of Cecilia and Bernardo whose tractor turned over, of Guido the child who carves men out of clay, of God, of the carnival which everybody celebrates, and of the flowing of the waters. The film shows a meeting without knowing the language of the other, a story of getting to know and seeing each other without words. Non-verbally, exclusively through images the film approaches the people of a small indigenous Kolla community. We accompany the seasonal tramp of Viviano and Ramona from the valley up to the village of Santa Cruz, 3000 meters above sea level, where they spend the summertime until the autumn rain makes them go back to Rio Blanquito. Living with the Kollas, inbetween the old rites and the irruptive modernity, in the grandiose landscape of Yunga and Quechua, the film narrates the day-to-day disappearence of an indigenous people. Dies irae. (Thomas Heise)

First the smoking chimney, which the telephoto lens draws up close to us. Then the trains, the clouds and the flocks of birds, the panorama of the city viewed through a wide-angle lens. Airplanes. Time-lapse. Slow-motion. Later, dark rain clouds, sun, snow, moonlight. The street in front of the building: warehouses before which junk is sorted, wine is delivered, a party is thrown. Burning cars, a terrible motorcycle accident. A young woman who day for day picks up her mail and the newspaper, crossing into the frame from the left and returning from the right. In all the years, she never seems to notice the man standing at his window with a camera watching her, recording life as it unfolds in front of his studio. It is only through the messages on the filmmaker’s answering machine that the viewer notes the passage of time. In the beginning these messages seem a bit funny: calls from happy or disappointed girlfriends, holiday greetings and congratulations. At that point, they are still without any context – but the context soon becomes clear. From then on, every message takes on a historical significance. Illness, death, pregnancy, birth, a break-up, successes, failures. It comes as a shock when we realize that we are in the middle of a life that is more dramatic than any fiction. (Christoph Terhechte)

THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE is a film about Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, well-known for his work with Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and his life and work partner Lady Jaye (née Jacqueline Breyer). One would expect the film to be about the history of industrial music, about Genesis as a link between the pre- and post-punk era, about the underground scene since the 1970s. And it is, but it tells the story from the perspective of a great romantic love that began in the 1990s. Genesis and Lady Jaye start to undergo surgical procedures to merge into a third being, a pandrogynous being.

THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE is also a film by Marie Losier, a filmmaker whose trademark is to playfully build up a very personal relationship with her underground role models. Kitchen and garden shots alternate with home-movie performances, magic tricks and archival footage. The film maintains its dynamic rhythm – with the help of Genesis’s cut-up narratives – even when Lady Jaye’s unexpected death turns it into a film about mourning. From that point it revolves around the question of how to die when two have merged into one – and how to go on living.

The first ever winner of the "Cinema fairbindet" Prize, a new award established this year at the Berlinale for films that explore developmental and political issues which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, will be touring through 25 German cities from October 18th until December 21st as part of the "Cinema fairbindet" road show. The list of participating cinemas can be found below together with the date of the screening(s) and any additional events marked. Please see the homepage of your particular cinema for more information.

When Sahand’s father gets a job on an oil rig, the family has to move from Iran’s fertile north to the hot, arid south. Soon afterwards, war breaks out with Iraq. Seven-year-old Sahand is at home with his mother when she is killed by a bomb. He survives but goes into shock. Unable to cope, his father takes him and his 12-year-old sister Shooka back to their home village to stay with their grandfather. The idea is that the calm and beauty of the north will help Sahand get over his trauma, but he finds it tough. On top of this, he is picked on by the other children in the village. One day, he discovers a wounded wild goose near a close-by lake. Its feathers remind him of the white dress his mother was wearing the day she died. Although his grandfather forbids him from looking after it, Sahand sneaks out at night to find the goose.

Thirteen experimental films from this year’s Forum Expanded program are now available from arsenal distribution: BLIND by Annika Larsson (Germany/Sweden 2010, 20’), CARRYING PICTURES by Tom Holert (Germany 2010, 10’), CARRYING PICTURES by Tom Holert (Germany, 2010, 10’), CET HOMME (This Man, Germany 2011) by Markus Ruff, DAS SCHLAFENDE MÄDCHEN (The Sleeping Girl) by Rainer Kirberg (Germany 2010, 114’), FÜHRUNG (Guided Tour, Germany 2010, 37’) by René Frölke, INTO THIN AIR by Mohammadreza Farzad (Iran 2010, 26’), MINOR by Patty Chang (USA 2010, 25’), NATIONAL MOTIVES by Raphaël Grisey (France/Hungary 2010, 28’), PARALLEL WORLDS by Harald Thys and Jos de Gruyter (Belgium 2010, 26’), PAROLE À LA FEMME by Eléonore de Montesquiou (Estonia 2010, 8’), PIGS by Pawel Wojtasik (US 2007-2010, 7’), THE STORY OF MILK & HONEY by Basma Alshrif (Lebanon 2010, 10’) and SURFACE NOISE by Tim Blue, David Phillips und Paul Rowley (Germany 2010, 7’).

From Oct. 28th through Nov. 11th 2009, the Arsenal presented "LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! Five Flaming Days in a Rented World", our first major cooperation with the HAU/Hebbel am Ufer theater. The festival was curated by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Marc Siegel and Susanne Sachsse, and invited over 50 international artists and scholars to attend in order to pay homage to pioneering American underground artist and queer icon Jack Smith. The performances, films and videos, slide shows, exhibitions, concerts, lectures, and discussions held during the festival did not just provide a variety of perspectives on the gender and genre bending work of Smith, Andy Warhol and their fellow 60's avant-gardists, but also placed Smith's work within the context of a wide-ranging group of contemporary artists.

The works commissioned by Arsenal for the festival are now all available through arsenal distribution.

A DVD box set containing works from 2009 & 2010 is now available for viewing purposes and / or for curators, festivals and other exhibition venues.