Arsenal Summer School 2025
16. Arsenal Summer School
20.–22. August 2025, at silent green
On Location: Cinema in the neighborhood
Like every year in August, the Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art is organizing a summer school. Over the course of three days 30 participants, Arsenal staff and invited guests will explore topics at the intersection between theory and practice, past and present. After a nomadic year with changing venues, Arsenal will reopen at silent green in Wedding at the beginning of 2026. On this occasion, this year's Arsenal summer school will focus on cinema in the neighborhood from a variety of perspectives. This includes excursions into the neighborhood: we will visit the City Cinema Wedding and the Cinema Krokodil. In the seminar events, invited filmmakers and Arsenal employees will present filmic representations of the neighborhood for discussion. In the practical part, participants can sketch and present the neighborhood in film and photography under artistic-theoretical guidance.
With contributions by: Aysun Bademsoy, Jonas Dederichs, Jule Fechner, Debora Fiora, Gabriel Hageni, Gregor Kasper, Birgit Kohler, Kenza Madsen, Ben Marnitz, Abdel Amine Mohammed, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Andrea Stosiek
The events will be held partly in German and partly in English.
Anyone interested can register under summerschool@arsenal-berlin.de
The number of participants is limited.
PROGRAMM
Wednesday, August 20
10–11 a.m., silent green
Arrival and welcome
Formation of groups that collect their thoughts on the topic and the contributions during the three days of the Summer School and work together in the practical part.
11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., silent green
Cinema in motion – Cinema in the neighborhood
Stefanie Schulte Strathaus
The Arsenal is moving to a new location for the second time in its history. It moved from Schöneberg to Potsdamer Platz and is now moving on to Wedding. In the silent green Kulturquartier in Berlin-Wedding, where the Arsenal archive has been located since 2015, all departments (cinema, Berlinale Forum / Forum Expanded, archive and distribution) will come together in one place for the first time in its history until 2026. The silent green and Wedding as a cultural location offer Arsenal a unique infrastructure and synergy opportunities with numerous cultural institutions and initiatives in the immediate neighborhood. For some, there are new ways to get there, others may be discovering the Arsenal in Wedding for the first time. What is the relationship between the environment of a movie theater and its practice?
12:30 p.m., silent green
Lunch in Mars restaurant
2–3:30 p.m., silent green
Workshop: Neighborhood portraits, Module 1
Jule Fechner, Kenza Madsen, Ben Marnitz
Joint development of a concept within the workshop groups, who will explore and portray the neighborhood in the following days with the help of video and photography.
4:30–7 p.m., City Cinema Wedding
Guest at City Cinema Wedding
Jonas Dederichs, Andrea Stosiek
Andrea Stosiek has been managing the City Cinema Wedding at the Centre Français Berlin since January 2023. She also runs the Sputnik Kino in Berlin-Kreuzberg and the open-air cinema INSEL @ Atelier Gardens in Berlin.
The listed theater hall of the City Cinema Wedding was built in the 1960s as a cultural center for the French military and has been open to all Berliners since the 1990s. During the day, various activities such as rehearsals, youth programs and theater residencies take place there. Since its revival in 2014 by Anne Lakeberg and Wiebke Wolter, the cinema has continuously shown arthouse films, documentaries, children's films and short films.
The diverse cinema program includes arthouse films, documentaries, previews, classics, francophone cinema, festivals, discussion events, children's film events and screenings for schools and kindergartens. With 219 seats, a spacious foyer and seminar rooms, it is an ideal venue for festivals, premieres and audience participation for local and international visitors.
Film screening with lecture and discussion:
WEDDING (Heiko Schier, West Germany 1989, German OV, 87 mins.)
With: Heino Ferch, Angela Schmid-Burgk, Harald Kempe, Roger Hübner
From Wedding for Wedding and in Wedding!
WEDDING has been a long-running hit since 2019: Susanne, Markus and “Sulle” Sulawski belonged to the same clique in the working-class district of Wedding when they were sixteen. They haven't seen each other for years. Now they meet up again by chance in their old hideout, a warehouse near the Berlin Wall. They have all run away from their shattered dreams, but at first they pretend to be content with their lives. But the longer their joint foray through Wedding lasts, the more truths come to light.
As one of the last films shot in the West before the fall of the Wall, WEDDING shows Berlin, and Wedding in particular, as it was in 1989.
7:30 p.m., silent green
Dinner together in Mars restaurant (included in price)
Thursday, August 21
10: a.m.–noon., silent green
Life plans – a long-term observation
Aysun Bademsoy
30 years ago, Aysun Bademsoy began a long-term observation of the first Turkish women's soccer team in Europe. Safiye, Arzu, Türkan, Nalan and Nazan from BSC-Agrispor are at home in Berlin-Kreuzberg. We get to know the girls at training, at away games, at home with their families and at their workplaces. Mädchen am Ball (1995) shows that BSC Agrispor in Berlin-Kreuzberg was more than just a sports club for the adolescents: in the midst of tournaments and friendships, the players gained a new self-image. In the years that followed, the director continued to follow her protagonists, making the films NACH DEM SPIEL (After the Game, 1997) and Ich gehe jetzt rein (2008). In the fourth part, Spielerinnen, the focus is on the next generation - young people who were born and grew up in Berlin but still feel alienated from mainstream society and take refuge in conservative role models.
Film screening with lecture, followed by a discussion:
NACH DEM SPIEL / AFTER THE GAME (Aysun Bademsoy, Germany 1997, OV with English subtitles, 60 mins.)
with: Arzu Çalkiliç, Safiye Kok, Nazan Bekler, Özlem Bekler
With the season coming to an end, the five young women will soon stop playing football. They are unsure of the next step in their lives. Apprenticeships are rare and a lack of money makes it difficult to break away from their strict family home and be independent. But for now, they are enjoying the Berlin summer together one last time.
Noon, silent green
Lunch in Mars restaurant
1:30–3:30 p.m., out on the streets
Workshop: Neighborhood portraits, Module 2
Jule Fechner, Kenza Madsen, Ben Marnitz
Wedding – Neighborhood in picture and sound. Neighborhood walk of the working groups
4–5:30 p.m., Cinema Krokodil
Guest at Cinema Krokodil
Gabriel Hageni, Debora
Originally, our cinema, built in a residential building in 1912, was called Lichtspieltheater NORD. When we took it over 21 years ago, we might have simply named it OST—if not for a crocodile that intervened. Its preserved remains, transformed into deep blue by Brazilian artist Alex Flemming, have since been displayed on the foyer ceiling. Our community-run cinema is supported and inspired by a broad circle of friends.
We primarily screen films from Central and Eastern Europe. The question of where "the East" begins receives different answers—not only from our guests born east of the Elbe but also from the films we show. Beyond the current war, often-overlooked landscapes and diverse ways of life serve as a starting point for our program, inviting us to explore the unfamiliar and the familiar, ourselves, and the world.
We see cinema not just as a film stage but as an interactive venue, a space for lively exchange, and sometimes even a playground. We align ourselves with the tradition of our ancestors—traveling performers, jugglers, circus folk, and fairground showmen. Our collection includes historical film prints as well as a growing archive of contemporary film distribution titles. Additionally, we preserve historic cinema technology and artifacts of everyday life from Central and Eastern Europe.
Unlike traditional archives, we emphasize active use: our collection serves as production material, props, and working tools for screenings, workshops, and creative activities. We encourage children to draw on film, build musical instruments and optical devices, and engage with exhibitions in our foyer—our very own peep show box. (Gabriel Hageni)
6:15–7:30 p.m., silent green
The African Quarter in Wedding - a multidimensional politics of memory from a postcolonial perspective
Gregor Kasper, Abdel Amine Mohammed
Film screening with lecture, ffollowed by a discussion:
CAFÉ TOGO (Musquiqui Chihying, Gregor Kasper, Germany, Taiwan, 2018, OV, English & German, 27 mins.)
CAFÉ TOGO looks at the efforts to change street names with colonial connotations in the so-called Afrikanisches Viertel (African Quarter) in Berlin-Wedding. According to Berlin’s street law, every street named after a person honors that person. Petersallee, Lüderitzstraße, and Nachtigalplatz bear the names of persons whose biographies are tainted by the blood of the victims of German colonialism. According to the law, streets that do not correspond to today’s understanding of democracy and human rights should be renamed.
CAFÉ TOGO follows the visions of the Black activist Abdel Amine Mohammed, who is working for a paradigm shift in the politics of state symbols: away from honoring colonial criminals, toward commemorating the victims and the resistance and freedom fighters of the German colonial regime. His goal: a multidimensional politics of memory within postcolonial perspectives. Abdel Amine Mohammed therefore wrote the story “With Colonial Love.” It is this story, along with a reference to the NS propaganda film Carl Peters (1941), which narrates the founding of German East Africa, that forms the basis for CAFÉ TOGO.
7:30 p.m., silent green
Dinner time / pause
9 p.m., silent green
Cinéma de quartier - People, Places, Faces and Gestures
Birgit Kohler
Film screening with introduction:
DAGUERRÉOTYPES (Agnès Varda, France, West Germany1975, OV with English subtitles, 80 mins.)
Agnès Varda (1928-2019) made films for six decades, all over France, in Cuba, in Los Angeles - but also right on her own doorstep, in the Rue Daguerre in Paris, named (of all places!) after the inventor of photography. She lived and worked here from the early 1950s until her death, and her production company Ciné-Tamaris also operated from this address. For her documentary film DAGUERRÉOTYPES in the autumn of 1974, she went from her home within a limited radius of 90 meters - the length of the power cable she ran outside her apartment through the slot in the letterbox for the shoot - into the small stores of her everyday life, including the bakery, butcher's, hairdresser's and perfumery. There she observes the actions and gestures of the traders and craftspeople, looks at their faces and asks them about their origins and their dreams. From individual portraits, a testimony of a social fabric, a lively neighborhood, emerges that goes beyond the local focus.
Friday, August 22, silent green
10:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m., silent green
Workshop: Neighborhood portraits, Module 3
Jule Fechner, Kenza Madsen, Ben Marnitz
Preparation of the films / interviews / photos in the working groups.
12:30–2 p.m., silent green
Lunch in Mars restaurant
2:30–4 p.m.
Workshop: Neighborhood portraits, Module 4
Jule Fechner, Kenza Madsen, Ben Marnitz
Presentation of the neighborhood portraits created by the 3 working groups
4:30–6 p.m., silent green
Discussion in the plenum, final round
6 p.m., silent green, Mars
Drinks
Contributors
Aysun Bademsoy was born in Mersin in 1960 and aged nine moved to Berlin, where she still lives. She made her first foray into film as an actress, whilst also studying theatre and media studies at Berlin’s Free University. She got together with students from the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) and took on assistant editing and directing roles. Her first documentary film saw her working with young people, using their migrant experience to bring a fresh perspective to the social landscape of Germany. The various realities of life in Berlin are a recurring theme in her observational documentaries, juxtaposed with the counter-shots of people in Turkey who have left Germany. Her films have screened at numerous international festivals. Since 2024, the Deutsche Kinemathek (German audiovisual heritage institution) took on the task of preserving and digitally restoring her work.
Films by Aysun Bademsoy (Selection)
Spielerinnen 2024, Spuren – Die Opfer des NSU 2019, Zyklop 2016, Ehre 2011, Am Rand der Städte 2005, Ich gehe jetzt rein 2008, Die Hochzeitsfabrik 2005, Deutsche Polizisten 1999, Nach dem Spiel 1997, Ein Mädchen im Ring 1996, Mädchen am Ball 1995, Fremde Kinder 1994, Detektei Furkan 1990, Fremde deutsche Nachbarschaft 1989
Jonas Dederichs comes from Belgium and has lived in Berlin for nine years. He has been working at City Kino Wedding for four years, where he is responsible for projection and theatre management. In his spare time, he lives out his artistic streak in experimental film techniques and sound structures.
Jule Fechner (*1993) completed her photography studies at Lette Verein Berlin in 2021. In her artistic work, she explores a wide range of socially relevant topics, which she visualizes through multimedia imagery. As a member of FOTOTREFF Berlin and the AFF Galerie, she focuses on the following questions: How can ruptures in photography be created, image realities disrupted, and unconventional compositions developed? In this context, she is involved in the conception of photographic dialogue formats and the curation of exhibitions.
Debora Fiora was born in Italy in 1978 and studied Russian, German and Polish studies at the University of Turin, specializing in contemporary prose and literary translation. Second degree at the Institute for East European Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Master's thesis on the analysis of docufiction and hybrid forms of fiction and documentary film using the example of the Russian mockumentary First on the Moon (2005).
Gabriel Hageni (*1972) studied art history and, after various positions inRussia, such as at a parish in Kaliningrad and an artists' colony near Novgorod Veliki, also studied Eastern European studies in Berlin. In 2004, he initiated the opening of the Berlin cinema Krokodil, which he runs with Debora Fiora. The two are a couple.
Gregor Kasper In his artistic practice, Gregor Kasper is primarily focused on the construction and mediation of history and remembrance, social contemporary analyses in the context of global capitalism, and emancipatory futures. Using a variety of media such as film / video, sound and installation, often in collaborative and participatory constellations, he is pursuing the interrelations between personal approaches and social counter/hegemonic narratives and power relations. His works are presented internationally in art institutions and film festivals, such as Berlinale - International Film Festival – Forum Expanded; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Locarno Film Festival; Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt; Migros Museum, Zurich; RAVY Biennal, Yaoundé; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; State Art Collection, Dresden; Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; CCA Lagos, Image Forum Festival, Tokyo. He is now living and working in Dresden and Berlin.
Birgit Kohler is Co-Head of Programming at Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art. From 2002 to 2019 she was also a member of the selection committee for the Berlinale Forum, and as interim director she was responsible for the section’s main program in 2019. As a curator and as an author she focuses primarily on the diversity of forms in current documentary filmmaking as well as on a large range of artistic approaches in international contemporary cinema. Her curatorial work also concentrates on the aesthetic exploration of socio-political phenomena in independent cinema from countries like Algeria, Greece, Lebanon, Morocco or Portugal for instance. Furthermore she teaches at universities and in film academies, including on the theory and practice of curation.
Kenza, Madsen is a film editor and post-production technician based in Berlin. Their work includes Il Buco by Michelangelo Frammartino (Venice Jury Prize, 2021) and Dortoirs by Hugo Mazzoccoli (Cinéma du Réel 2025). They have collaborated with festivals such as ALFILM in Berlin and are particularly interested in independent and collaborative projects.
Ben Marnitz managed international distribution and program coordination at the Berlin-based film distributor Salzgeber and coordinated the Industry Sessions of the Berlinale’s European Film Market (EFM). He is currently studying Communication in Social and Economic Contexts at the Berlin Universität der Künste. Previously, he studied theatre studies and social and cultural anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin as well as journalism and Media Communication at Universității Babeș-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His graduation project Berlin's Moving Archive is currently beeing developed in collaboration with Arsenal – Institute für Film und Videokunst. His research and professional interests focus on archival practices, festival strategies, and audience design.
Abdel Amine Mohammed studied Public Administration and Political Science, and French Philology at the University of Potsdam. His areas of interest include Critical Theories of Development, Postcolonial Theories, Empowerment Workshops for Blacks and People of Color in Work Contexts, Introductory Seminars on Whiteness Awareness, Workshops for people from white majority societies (also in work contexts), Theories on racism, German Colonial History, Theories and Concepts of Racism-critical and Antiracist education, as well as various practical projects on migration and community networking. He lives and works in Berlin.
Stefanie Schulte Strathaus is the artistic director of Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin. From 2001-2019 she was a member of the selection committee of the Berlinale Forum. From 2006-2020 she was the founding director of the Berlinale section Forum Expanded. She curated film exhibitions, such as “LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! Five Flaming Days in A Rented World” (2009, with Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel), „A Paradise Built in Hell“ (2014, with Bettina Steinbrügge), and “From Behind the Screen” (2018), as well as research and exhibition projects such as “Living Archive – Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice“ (2010-2013) and “Archive außer sich” (2017-2022). In 2021 she launched the biennial festival “Archival Assembly“. Her work is dealing with the intersections of film restoration, exhibition and distribution. Stefanie Schulte Strathaus is serving on the boards of the Harun Farocki Institut, the Master program Film Culture at the University in Jos/Nigeria and FIAF (Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film / International Federation of Film Archives).
Andrea Stosiek has lived in Berlin since 1995 and has been self-employed as an event organiser and media agency since 2003.
She studied Social pedagogics in Münster and afterwards Gender Studies and Cultural Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin.
Alongside her studies, she worked at the university on documentary film and German film after 1945, curated film series and worked as a projectionist and marketing assistant in various cinemas.
She is also co-founder of the BRITISH SHORTS SHORT FILM FESTIVAL, the biggest short film festival for British and Irish short film outside the UK.
Since 2023 she has taken over the management of CITY KINO WEDDING and is the CEO of SPUTNIK Kino-und Kultur GmbH.
Registration
The number of participants is limited to 30 persons. Slots will be allotted according to when the application is received. Participation fee: 175 Euro / 155 Euro (members, students, Berlin-Pass) / 135 Euro (members in the Arsenal Freundeskreis)
Registration deadline: August 1, 2025
Venues
silent green
Gerichtstr. 35
13347 Berlin
City Kino Wedding
Müllerstr. 74
13349 Berlin
Kino Krokodil
Greifenhagener Str. 32
10437 Berlin
Contact
Angelika Ramlow | Project coordination
summerschool@arsenal-berlin.de
