Three couples in crisis each seek advice at therapy sessions and argue over infidelities, abortion and separate bedrooms. Accusations, fears and traumas all come up, with separation very much on the cards. These case studies reveal areas of conflict, structures and relationship patterns all of a universal nature. A film that portrays the efforts needed to preserve love and relationships as a work in progress. A set-up whereby therapy sessions are held in the sober atmosphere of a studio. The problems being negotiated are standard ones. The clients are played by actors, the therapists work in the field in real life and are not playing a role. These sessions are supplemented by scenes staged with minimal decor from the everyday lives of the various couples in line with the epic theatre tradition as well as workshop discussions in which the therapists relate their practices to the film team. Documentary elements and improvised acting are combined in distinctive fashion, creating a variation on the documentary which works with abstraction and fiction and is unconcerned with authenticity. Resembling nothing so much as a public experiment, this artificial set-up yields touching moments full of emotion.

The European Union National Institutes for Culture / EUNIC Berlin invites you to join them on a very special journey into the history of the Berlin Film Festival from its start in 1951 to today. Fourteen cultural institutes are presenting films from their countries that have received the Golden Bear, Berlin International Film Festival's main award, over the last six decades. The broad selection comprises 30 features and shorts of many different genres and styles. They will be shown on eight evenings at Arsenal between September 13 and November 29, with many of the directors in attendance as well as representatives from the respective cultural institutes.

The production designer is the "director's eye" according to famous PD Ken Adam. The production design team implements the script in visual terms, conceptualizes and orchestrates spaces, defines milieus, establishes color schemes for dramatic purposes and plays a central role in creating the atmosphere and fictional world of a film. Beyond design-intensive genres such as science fiction or the history film, convincing production design is also a central factor in productions less obviously concerned with scenery, the essential contribution it makes to the "art" of film being often overlooked despite it being impossible to miss. The series continues in November.

Nina Menkes inhabits a solitary position in American independent cinema. Her penetrating films captivate with their hypnotic images, which find a distinct form to portray mental states and unconscious ideas. We are very happy, following a small retrospective in 2008, to be able to welcome Menkes back to Arsenal on October 19 for the German premiere of her current film. In HITPARKUT (Dissolution, Israel 2010), a male protagonist is at the centre of the narrative for the first time in a Menkes film. A Jewish Israeli, he lives in a run-down flat in the Arabic part of Tel Aviv. He seems stuck in a cycle of aggression and lethargy. His solitary nighttime outings end in half-empty bars. He haggles at the butcher's shop and afterwards grinds a knife in time with a metronome. The murder he commits remains of secondary importance. Inspired by Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment", a dark drama composed of only loosely connected scenes comes into focus in shining black and white. In collaboration with the dffb. (19.10.)

From October 19–21, the Documentary Film Initiative of the Filmbüro NRW (dfi) is organizing a symposium at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne on "Documentary Methods in Art". Stefanie Schulte Strathaus is giving a presentation there on October 20 entitled "Distribution and Discourse: Experiments in Cinemas and Exhibition Spaces". Further participants include Christa Blümlinger, Phil Collins, Barbara Engelbach, Luke Fowler, Ulrike Franke / Michael Loeken, Philipp Hamann, Dietrich Leder, Mischa Leinkauf, Katrin Mundt, Marcel Odenbach und Fiona Tan.

From October 19–21, the Documentary Film Initiative of the Filmbüro NRW (dfi) is organizing a symposium at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne on "Documentary Methods in Art". Stefanie Schulte Strathaus is giving a presentation there on October 20 entitled "Distribution and Discourse: Experiments in Cinemas and Exhibition Spaces". Further participants include Christa Blümlinger, Phil Collins, Barbara Engelbach, Luke Fowler, Ulrike Franke / Michael Loeken, Philipp Hamann, Dietrich Leder, Mischa Leinkauf, Katrin Mundt, Marcel Odenbach und Fiona Tan.