Rebellious, ill-adjusted and cool – the attitude harbored by certain members of the younger generation in the US and other countries, including West Germany during the Adenauer era, clashed with a society that remained authoritarian some 10 years after the end of the war. A German term that dates back to the turn of the 20th century was used to label Germany's rebellious youths and later became the title of a film - DIE HALBSTARKEN (Teenage Wolfpack, Georg Tressler, BRD 1956). For some, the term was a snide insult; for others it was a compliment. Whether in Germany or in the US, the deviant youths indulged in criminal activity, created a disturbance and protested against traditional values. They were cool and into rock 'n' roll and motorbikes. Many films of the 1950s examine this social conflict, several wag a finger and some manage to depict precisely the daily realities of youth. The first charismatic heroes of this generation, which recognized itself in the unruly protagonists of THE WILD ONE (László Benedek, USA 1953) and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Nicholas Ray, USA 1955), were Marlon Brando and James Dean. In Germany, Horst Buchholz, the star of Tressler's DIE HALBSTARKEN became a hero. This month's Magical History Tour is dedicated to American and German teenage rebel classics as well as film representations of similarly-minded young rebels from earlier days, or different social and geographical contexts.

The European Union National Institutes for Culture / EUNIC Berlin invites you on a very special journey into the history of the Berlin Film Festival from its start in 1951 to now. Fourteen cultural institutes present films from their countries, which over the past six decades have been awarded the Golden Bear, Berlin International Film Festival's main award. The wide selection comprises 30 features and shorts of all kinds of genres and styles. They will be shown on eight evenings at Arsenal between 13. September and 29. November, in the presence of many directors as well as the representatives of the specific cultural institutes. The season opens on 13.9 with DIE FRAU UND DER FREMDE (The Woman and the Stranger, GDR 1984) by Rainer Simon, who we are pleased to announce will attend the screening alongside János Can Togay, spokesman for EUNIC Berlin, and the head of the Berlinale, Dieter Kosslick.

Curatorial mother Vaginal Davis is presenting LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jacques Demy, F 1963) this month, which the director described as the first "popular opera written for film." Cherbourg, November 1957: 18-year-old Geneviève (Catherine Deneuve), who sells umbrellas in her mother's store, falls in love with car mechanic Guy. Their first night of love is also their last before he has to go to Algeria for his military service. Her mother forces her to marry a well-to-do jeweler when it turns out she is pregnant. The film propelled Deneuve, who was 19 at the time, to international fame. Followed by drinks and music in Arsenal 2. Part of the Living Archive project.

We are delighted to present Bernhard Sallmanns‘s documentary THE BAD FIELD on our VOD channel at realeyz.tv. A familiar view: How much does one see when one looks out of a window? What is visible, what remains invisible? The view of THE BAD FIELD from the window of my room in my parents´ house is the starting point of this video work. The field is both a doorway to and a surface onto which themes of the film can be projected: childhood, war, the disappearance of rural world – periods, times overlap and clash.