A silent Western from the Soviet Union: Lev Kuleshov's gold-panning drama PO SAKONU (By the Law, USSR 1926) is regarded as one of the most significant films of the 20s. It tells the story of five adventures who look for and find gold in the Yukon. After two murders, the survivors are confronted with an existential dilemma - in a log cabin in the midst of ice, snow and high water. Alexandra Chochlova plays the unusual leading role in this minimalist film of striking visual power. We are happy to be able to present the print restored by the Austrian Film Museum for the first time in Berlin – with the soundtrack especially composed for it by Franz Reisecker, one of the key figures in Austria's progressive crossover music scene, which will be performed by him live.

To round off the year, Vaginal Davis is presenting TOCA PARA MI (Argentina 2001) by Rodrigo Fürth on December 16. Carlos is the drummer in a punk rock band in Buenos Aires. When his adoptive father Genaro, an accordion player, dies, he travels to the small village of Los Angeles, which is in the middle of nowhere. The further he leaves punk music behind him, the more open he becomes to the rhythms of folklore, such as the Cumbia or Cuartelazo. It is more than ten years ago that a train last passed through Los Angeles. For this reason, many of the village inhabitants have either done a runner or are prostituting themselves, like the young Fabiana... Followed by drinks, music and gossip with Vaginal Davis.

At the request of Constanze Ruhm the film ANNA (Italy 1975, 16mm, 213', OV/GeS) by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli will be shown and discussed on December 18. ANNA is an documentary about a 16-year-old homeless junkie, eight months pregnant, whom the filmmakers discovered in Rome’s Piazza Navona. It documents the interactions between the beautiful, clearly damaged, often dazed teenager and the directors, who take her in partly out of compassion and partly because she’s a fascinating subject for a film. ANNA cuts between long domestic scenes (including an interminable delousing in the shower) and equally protracted café discussions back in the square, where the unruly cross talk touches on the movie’s key themes: between filmmakers, the state and the society. Far from straightforward vérité, this self-implicating chronicle includes reenactments of the first meeting, explicit attempts to direct its subject, and frequent intrusions from behind the camera (not least the emergence of the film’s electrician as a love interest).  The film was originally recorded with a video apparatus in a length of 11 hours and a 4 hours abridged version was transferred to 16mm film in June 1975 by using the "Vidigrafo" (constructed by Grifi himself). That same year, ANNA was shown at the International Forum of New Cinema.