Am Rand / Am Rand Revisited / Im Sommer (Die sichtbare Welt)

Am Rand

Shot along the former Berlin Wall in November/December 1990, this short film, created as part of a course by Peter Nestler at the DFFB, captures places in transition: Filmed on the borders of the districts of Neukölln/Treptow, Moabit/Mitte, Wedding/Prenzlauer Berg and Märkisches Viertel/Wilhelmsruh and linked by camera pans, long shots show allotments, dead ends, diggers, construction workers, a mobile kitchen, but especially vast and undeveloped areas - like an urban border running through the middle of the city. (bik)

Am Rand Revisited

In AM RAND REVISITED, Arslan, behind the camera again, in December 2023, revisits the areas he chose for AM RAND 32 years later, and shows what became of the former wastelands. Combined, the two films are an impressive document of the city's drastic transformation. (bik)

Im Sommer (Die sichtbare Welt)

Paul doesn't want to work, has no money and lives for the day. His girlfriend works in an archive and paints. On a summer's day, he meanders through Berlin - stops include the Europa Center, the Royal Palast cinema and the canal by the Urban Hospital - meeting friends, listening to music, and reading. Most of the time, he keeps to himself. "There's nothing extraordinary about my life, but it is transformed by the way I think about it." In his medium-length DFFB graduation film, Thomas Arslan puts quotes in his characters' mouths (such as this one by Paul Valéry) and lets them speak in citations. Scattered references in the picture: Céline, Brinkmann, Eustache. Formal ambition meets unspectacular everyday life, the effort of doing nothing meets the light of summer. (bik)

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Arsenal on Location is funded by the Capital Cultural Fund

The international programs of Arsenal on Location are a cooperation with the Goethe-Institut