We are pleased to present five new DVD releases realized through "Living Archive": Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s avant-garde films RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX and AMY! (GB 1977 & 1980), Deepa Dhanrajs pioneering film-political work KYA HUA IS SHAHAR KO? (What Has Happened to this City?, India, 1986), Philip Scheffner’s THE HALFMOON FILES and DAY OF THE SPARROW (Germany 2007 & 2010), a DVD featuring classics of queer cinema by Sheila McLaughlin and Lynne Tillman (INSIDE OUT, COMMITTED and SHE MUST BE SEEING THINGS, USA 1976–84) and the cinematic oeuvre of the Berlin filmmaker, photographer, networker, story and image collector Riki Kalbe with a total of 15 films from 1976 to 1998. The Arsenal cinema will be showing all films from July 2-7 (for program details please see arsenal cinema / program).

We are pleased to present five new DVD releases realized through "Living Archive": Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s avant-garde films RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX and AMY! (GB 1977 & 1980), Deepa Dhanrajs pioneering film-political work KYA HUA IS SHAHAR KO? (What Has Happened to this City?, India, 1986), Philip Scheffner’s THE HALFMOON FILES and DAY OF THE SPARROW (Germany 2007 & 2010), a DVD featuring classics of queer cinema by Sheila McLaughlin and Lynne Tillman (INSIDE OUT, COMMITTED and SHE MUST BE SEEING THINGS, USA 1976–84) and the cinematic oeuvre of the Berlin filmmaker, photographer, networker, story and image collector Riki Kalbe with a total of 15 films from 1976 to 1998. The Arsenal cinema will be showing all films from July 2-7 (for program details please see arsenal cinema / program).

Under the pseudonym "Marran Gosov", German-Bulgarian filmmaker Tzvetan Marangosoff shot a total of 27 short films and five features between 1965 and 1975, the majority of which in the Munich district of Schwabing. These comprise an incomparable and comprehensive cinematic oeuvre, which creates a unique picture of the time due to its continuity. The quality of Gosov's films can be put down to a special mix of a quirky love of experimentation, a propensity for the documentary, small, cleverly trenchant stories from everyday life, with usually young professional actors, a humorous lightness of touch and an outsider's perspective, that of someone still from the east. He can safely be counted as part of the so-called "Munich Group" that loosely formed around Klaus Lemke, Werner Enke, May Spils, Roger Fritz, Eckhardt Schmidt and Rudolf Thome. We are showing a short film program and his last feature WONNEKLOSS. (Bernhard Marsch) (25.7., with guest Bernhard Marsch)

On July 29 Berlin based filmmaker and artist Juliane Zelwies will be presenting self-portraits: The camera as a mirror, observer, voyeur, witness, chronicler and listener. While in Chantal Akerman's LA CHAMBRE (1972) the camera scans the room systematically, it merely floats along a shopping street together with Adolf Winkelmann in KASSEL, 9.12.1967, 11.45h. Effie Wu carries out some frank flirtation (SUPER SMILE, 2007), Lisa Steele makes a comprehensive list of previous injuries (BIRTHDAY SUIT – WITH SCARS AND DEFECTS, 1974) and Birgit Hein reveals her most initiate thoughts and experiences in BABY, I WILL MAKE YOU SWEAT (1994). (Juliane Zelwies)

It is not just collectives, groups or factories that mark the pluralist nature of cinema. The ensemble film is a similarly plural collective work and undermines classical norms in similar fashion. While this wildly varied dramatic and narrative category with the potential to become its own genre has experienced a surprising revival over the last few years, its use stretches way back across film history too. Both then and today, these hugely dynamic cinematic patchworks create worlds of interlinked character constellations, intricate networks of relationships and deliberately de-centered group portraits: complex universes marked by outstanding acting ensembles, hosts of stars each given their chance to shine.