Clichéd ideas of the Soviet revolution film tend to ignore its national and regional variety. By concentrating on films created in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic – produced by the largely economically and politically autonomous WUFKU Film Studios (The All-Ukrainian Photography and Cinema Administration) – this retrospective attempts to put across a more differentiated picture. Alongside the place of production, it makes reference – and this is the current impulse – to a place of film heritage in the form of the National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Centre in Kiev, which despite the political crises of the last years has continued to carry out impressive work on the restoration, publication and communication of valuable archive holdings.

This look at the films restored by the Dovzhenko Centre, which have also been given new soundtracks, attempts at the same time to reconsider the relationship between the political and the aesthetic. However different they might be, these films still represent the results of the revolution. They should not be presented as agitprop classics, but rather as aesthetic manifestos that have their eye not just on flags, but also on unique faces; not just on fists, but also on moving bodies and gestures; not just on the exploitation of natural resources; but also on their form and texture.

The Politics of Rhythm: The focus here is on more than just a narrative illustration of history. The rhythm of film and the rhythm of the revolution interact on a whole series of different levels by tapping into new spaces of action and perception – from the new routines of industrialized work via the geopolitical transformations of city and countryside all the way to the collision of different historical eras in the superimposition of the old and the new. The rhythm of film organizes a whole series of sensual conflict zones at the level of the material itself. The effects of poetic montage, the leaving behind of the everyday, or its sudden return carry political consequence when the cinematic rhythm achieves its potential of opening up new temporal spaces of action both in and via history.

The series also takes up the "great cinema" of the small genre: the seldom-screened trailers and animated films of the Soviet silent era, only a few of which survive today. The series was curated and organized by Elena Vogman and Georg Witte in collaboration with Stanislav Menzelevskyi.

To coincide with the "Fassbinder – NOW" exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, every Monday we are screening a film from the rich oeuvre of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who would have turned 70 this year. Even 33 years after his death, his work continues to exude an undeniable topicality. As a chronicler of German history and society, he examined the structures that enable people to oppress others, as well as the emotional exploitation in intimate relationships and how they depend on economic conditions.