In his latest documentary Daniel Kötter sketches the psychogeography of a geopolitically charged landscape and its inhabitants between extractivism, war and displacement. In the form of a journey in eastern Armenia, the film follows human and non-human actors as they make their way through the landscape, from Lake Sevan to the Sotk gold mine, occupied by Azerbaijan since the Karabakh War in 2020.

The Politics of Listening to the Moving Image (A.T.)
17-22 September 2024, at silent green, Kino Arsenal, SINEMA TRANSTOPIA, migas Listening Bar among other venues

Archival Assembly #3 turns its focus to the importance of sound and language within the archival practices of international film history.

Since 1994, Cathy Lee Crane has crafted a body of work that mines the historical archive to produce lyrical films of speculative history. She received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013 in recognition for her unique re-combinations of archival and staged material.

In addition to the Silver and Golden Bears, various independent juries award prizes at the Berlinale. Forum and Forum Expanded films received several awards.

The digital restoration of Techqua Ikachi, Land - My Life by Anka Schmid, Agnes Barmettler and James Danaqyumptewa celebrated its premiere at Berlinale Forum Special. The unique ethnographic document, a collage of film, photography and painting, tells the story of the Hopi in Arizona from their own perspective and way of thinking.

The 30 films in the main programme of the 54^th Forum show how political awareness and cinematic form are connected, the diverse ways in which world knowledge can be experienced and why the most determined women are often to be found in the most remote corners of the globe.

Communities and the convoluted ways in which they end up having to live in order to secure their continued existence are the pulse of this year’s programme. In the films of this year’s programme, everyday objects and materials become metaphorically repurposed as a means of exploring hidden networks.

This year’s Forum Special shows films that take a stance – from the 1970s to today. As forms of resistance, they draw on relationships and intimacy, listen and speak out: transgenerational, activist-minded, creative, persistent.

Arsenal is moving out of the Filmhaus on Potsdamer Platz by the end of 2024 and will open its new cinema in the West Hall of the silent green Kulturquartier in Berlin-Wedding in 2026. In mid-December 2024, we will say goodbye to 25 years at Potsdamer Platz and will move on into a year as a traveling cinema playing at various locations in Berlin, Germany and internationally.

Seven films from the upcoming Forum Expanded programme have been confirmed. The works selected shed light on both the palpable and more ephemeral effects of power, grief, and dispossession.

From biopics to musicals, from road movies to images of closeness: the first eight films of the 54th Berlinale Forum show historical awareness, are culturally wide ranging and take a stand in socially and politically challenging times.

On November 30, before the screening of Birgit Hein's film BABY, I WILL MAKE YOU SWEAT, the publication "Viva Birgit Hein", edited by Mike Holboom, will be presented.

We are opening our audio archive with the podcast "Arsenal 60ff". The audience discussions during the Berlinale Forum are legendary – enthusiastic and often entertaining. We are presenting a selection and contextualizing them in conversations with experts.

The head of Berlinale Forum Barbara Wurm introduces her new selection team. It is made up of a broad range of experts—filmmakers, critics, curators and academics.

On April 15 2023, war erupted in Sudan between two rival military factions. Two members of the Sudanese Film Group, Suliman Elnour and Ibrahim Shaddad, had to leave Sudan. They abandoned their work, their archives, their premises and all their worldly possessions and escaped with their families to Egypt in June 2023. The Arsenal wants to support them and asks for help.

The book "Accidental Archivism," produced as part of the Archival Assembly symposium, is available for download from meson press.

From now on, you can research the around 10,000 films in our collection more easily and filter them according to different categories in our newly redesigned and restructured online film database. This new database replaces our old open access database, which was in use for over 30 years and was originally programmed by Ulrich Gregor himself. The picture shows the database page for the print with which the Arsenal film collection was started back in 1963 (luckily we have a new print of the film in the meantime, it’s also available as a DCP!).

The Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art is planning to move into new premises in the silent green Kulturquartier in 2025. 

There were a number of different reasons for the naming of Kino Arsenal in 1970. One of them was the allusion to the silent film by the Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko from 1929. We asked the author and film critic Bert Rebhandl to look at the film again from today's perspective. The result is a comprehensive research and re-examination.