Cinema Archive Detail

December 2015
New French Cinema:  Axelle Ropert and Serge Bozon
Axelle Ropert and Serge Bozon, born 1972, are key figures in contemporary French cinema. Both make films, write about films, and act in films. Axelle Ropert is also the scriptwriter for Serge Bozon. Their reviews have been published in Trafic, Cahiers du cinéma, Cinema Scope, Vertigo (Bozon) and Les Inrockuptibles (Ropert), although their long writing career for the magazine La Lettre du cinéma (1998 to 2005) is of particularly significance for both of them with respect to their group and working contexts. It is from this period that their close relationships with filmmakers such as Jean-Charles Fitoussi, Pierre Léon, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, Jean-Claude Biette, Marie-Claude Treilhou, and Paul Vecchiali stem. Although the individual films made by Bozon and Ropert exhibit different personal styles, they each demonstrate an artistic single-mindedness and comprehensive knowledge of film history. They share a predilection for humor and musical interventions, an anti-naturalistic approach, and a joy for text that shows itself in precisely written dialogues and novelistic storytelling. The focus is often on groups, cliques or families, on farewells or disruptions. They are also united in how they reference both classic American cinema and Eric Rohmer.
We are happy to be able to present thee films by Serge Bozon and two films by Axelle Ropert as part of the 15th French Film Week, some of them for the very first time in Berlin. Thanks to the support of the Institut français Germany, both will be our guests at Arsenal. Alongside numerous Q&As, a studio discussion with Axelle Ropert moderated by Marcus Seibert will be taking place on 13.12. as part of the "Revolver Live" series.
December 2015
Around the World
"Weltreise. Forster – Humboldt – Chamisso – Ottinger" is the title of the Ulrike Ottinger exhibition that can be seen at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin from December 2, 2015 until February 27, 2016. But travelling with the world is equally one of the leitmotifs of Ottinger's cinematic work. As an "expediteur to the margins of our world's perception" (Christina Tilmann), someone who crosses boundaries between genres and categories, and a cinematic cartographer of regions both near and far and spaces real and imaginary, for her most recent exhibition project, Ottinger has set out on the trail of Adelbert von Chamisso in the northern Pacific. The visual worlds of this expedition form part of the Weltreise exhibition, as do travelogues, collections of notes, and artifacts from European research trips from the 18th and 19th century. To accompany the exhibition, we are presenting five works by Ulrike Ottinger as well as five journeys of discovery by other directors (from Chantal Akerman to Nikolaus Geyrhalter). The series will continue in January and February.
December 2015
Magical History Tour: Light in Film
In the beginning, there was light – a concept inextricably linked to cinema. The radiant glow of a high-wattage projection bulb is like a shimmering echo of the fundamental subject of film and cinema: light. It's impossible to even shoot a film without daylight or artificial light, key or fill lighting, soft light or floodlights, to say nothing of the work of the camera and lighting team who design the lighting and position it on set. Lighting forms an essential artistic resource for the director, capable of telling stories or affecting how they are told, creating moods and unleashing different emotions. The twelve films showing at the Magical History Tour in December give an impression of the huge diversity of working methods and effects linked to both light (and shadow).
December 2015
New: Rising Stars, Falling Stars –  Letters from the Wardrobe
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?"
December 2015
Vaginal Davis Presents Rising Stars, Falling Stars –  Letters from the Wardrobe
December 2015
German Short Film Prize
December 2015
Berlin Cinema Premiere
December 2015
The DEFA Foundation Presents
December 2015
Arsenal Filmatelier & SonONOlux
The first season of the Arsenal Filmatelier (in collaboration with the FilmSoundProject SonONOlux) on the subject of light comes to a close on 9.12. with a comprehensive closing presentation. Since March this year, the Arsenal Filmatelier team, which consists of Ute Aurand, Robert Beavers, Anna Faroqhi, Eunice Martins, Laura Mello, Haim Peretz, and Stefanie Schlüter, have watched and discussed a wide range films at Arsenal with nearly 200 Berlin school children from five schools in Kreuzberg, Adlershof, Pankow, Prenzlauer Berg, and Neukölln. They conceived and realized their own cinematic works in urban space and at the schools, experimenting with analogue and digital formats and researching and recording whole worlds of sounds. We would like to present some of the works created in this way on 9.2. at Arsenal, including the first live performance of a film soundtrack which Eunice Martins and Laura Mello developed with pupils from the Leibniz Gymnasium. Funded from the Berlin Project Fund for Cultural Education.
December 2015
Arsenal Filmatelier & SonONOlux

New French Cinema: Axelle Ropert and Serge Bozon

Around the World

Magical History Tour: Light in Film

New: Rising Stars, Falling Stars – Letters from the Wardrobe

Vaginal Davis Presents Rising Stars, Falling Stars – Letters from the Wardrobe

German Short Film Prize

Berlin Cinema Premiere

The DEFA Foundation Presents

Arsenal Filmatelier & SonONOlux

Arsenal Filmatelier & SonONOlux

New French Cinema:  Axelle Ropert and Serge Bozon

New: Rising Stars, Falling Stars –  Letters from the Wardrobe

Vaginal Davis Presents Rising Stars, Falling Stars –  Letters from the Wardrobe