Archive & Distribution

IJames Benning’s first film called THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA was a 1975 trip across the country, capturing its scenery through a car windshield. This second one also crisscrosses the nation, but without a car, carving it up instead into a series of static shots of just under two minutes, one for each state, presented alphabetically, from Heron Bay, Alabama to Kelly, Wyoming.

In March, Archive außer sich and its project partners will be part of The Whole Life. Archives & Imaginaries at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. How do archives influence today’s social realities? Can archives be decolonized in the digital space? And how can archives enable alternative ideas of the future? From March 24th to 26th The Whole Life. Archives & Imaginaries will reflect on archives as places for counter-narratives and illuminate the many links between archives and society.

Thanks to the film heritage support program (FFE), financed by the Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), the states of Germany, and the German Federal Film Borad (FFA), the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art has been able to restore a number of remarkable historical productions from its own archive and now also to make them available digitally to a wider audience. The focus has been on films by women, keeping in mind a variety of experiences of migration and a transnational perspective.

For decades, Mrs. Coda has taken care of children whose mothers earn their money on the streets at night. Over the years, Moumouni Sanou has managed to gain the trust of everyone involved and gain a deep insight into the lives of Odile and Farida, both of whom depend on Mrs. Coda's services.