A new Rising Stars, Falling Stars phase begins. As usual, film expert Vaginal Davis will be presenting discoveries from our archive. Ms. Davis came to Berlin from Los Angeles in 2005 in order to work with the CHEAP Collective. Bearing in mind all her activities as an artist, author, DJ, and performance artist, we are very happy that this cinema expert has been sharing her film historical knowledge with Arsenal audiences on a monthly basis since 2007. She is supported – not just on the piano – by another member of the CHEAP Collective, Daniel Hendrickson.
The coming phase will be the last at the Arsenal cinema. From early 2016, the series will only take place every quarter, but on a bigger and more exciting scale in the domed hall of the silent green Kulturquartier. For it is here where we are now storing the 10,000 films from which Vaginal Davis makes her selection.
The final phase at Potsdamer Platz is small but perfectly formed: planned for 3 months, it's entitled "Letters from the Wardrobe". The focus is on costumes, make-up and hairstyles, production design and architecture. The first film in this phase on December 27 forms a link to the previous one, which was dedicated to music: DIVA by Jean-Jacques Beineix, the 1981 cult film in which a young man secretly records an opera concert by the diva he reveres and gets into difficulties when the tape is switched. A wardrobe story manages in the process to make the front page: "Who stole the diva's gown?"
