Jin, a bright-eyed six-year-old, lives with her mother and little sister, Bin, in a cramped apartment in Seoul, South Korea. When their mother decides to go look for their estranged father, Jin and Bin are forced to stay with their alcoholic Big Aunt for the summer. The girls are given a piggy bank with a promise from their mother that she will return when it is full. After their mother fails to return, Jin and her sister are forced to move to a farm owned by their grandparents. It is through this journey that Jin comes to learn the importance of family bonds. Inspired by her grandmother’s determination and hard work, Jin learns that taking care of her younger sister is actually a way of filling the hole in her heart.

Since last February, a selection of films from the arsenal distribution range has been available at ARTE Creative, an interactive platform that also encompasses experimental film and video work. Every month, a new arsenal distribution film is added to the channel, which is then available for streaming over a one-year period. Gheith Al-Amine’s ONCE UPON A SIDEWALK ist he latest addition to our channel. This video explores the representation of women as objects of desire and questions the medium of video itself by repeatedly manipulating its parameters. Geith Al-Amine’s works "T.S.T.L" and "King Lost His Tooth" were shown in the Forum Expanded programm of the 2012 Berlinale.

So Yong Kim’s TREELESS MOUNTAIN is starting in selected cinemas on March 1. The film, which was shown in the 2009 Forum and has played successfully at many international festivals since, is being distributed by arsenal distribution. So Yong Kim's second feature length film (her third, FOR ELLEN, was shown in this year's Forum program) tells of Jin, a bright-eyed six-year-old, who lives with her mother and little sister, Bin, in Seoul, South Korea. When their mother decides to go look for their estranged father, Jin and Bin are forced to stay with their alcoholic Aunt for the summer. The girls are given a piggy bank with a promise from their mother that she will return when it is full. After their mother fails to return, Jin and her sister are forced to move to their grandparents. It is through this journey that Jin comes to learn the importance of family bonds.

This month, Gusztáv Hámos and Katja Pratschke present photo-films that examine memory and time and make us think of cinema. In LA JETÉE (Chris Marker, F 1962) the survivors of a nuclear war conduct time travel experiments with a prisoner. By remembering a particularly strong mental image, the face of a woman, the man manages to travel back in time and meet her. In (NOSTALGIA) (Hollis Frampton, USA 1971) a voice describes 13 photos. After a while, the pictures are burnt and transformed to ashes. Commentary and images are shifted tectonically. In FIASKO (Janet Riedel, K. Pratschke, G. Hámos, D 2010) Steinig, a survivor of Auschwitz, arrives in a hauntingly strange but also strangely familiar place, experiences déja-vu and gets caught in the maelstrom of a convoluted system (that of Stalinist Hungary). The film is told through split screen photography. (March 20, 7 pm).

Sandrine Bonnaire is one of the most famous and popular French actresses of her generation. Since her debut in Maurice Pialat’s A NOS AMOURS (1983), she has worked with numerous auteurs and demonstrated her astounding versatility. With the generous support of the Institut français, Arsenal has been showing a comprehensive retrospective of her films since January.

From February 26 to 29, we are showing Ulrike Ottinger's Berlin trilogy to wrap up our series on her work: BILDNIS EINER TRINKERIN - ALLER JAMAIS RETOUR (PORTRAIT OF A FEMALE DRUNKARD, 1979), FREAK ORLANDO (1981) and DORIAN GRAY IM SPIEGEL DER BOULEVARDPRESSE (THE IMAGE OF DORIAN GRAY IN THE YELLOW PRESS, 1984).

Films are collective achievements. In this month's Magical History Tour we are showing films that highlight this collective work. This includes films made by groups that are only loosely connected to each other, as well as by collectives that reject the idea of individual authorship. These film collectives, which mostly emerged from political and social movements, wanted to create an anti-discourse with their work. They wanted to breach hierarchies and authorities and use film as a means of education and agitation, open to as many people as possible, especially those without power. The plurality of voices also plays an aesthetic role and is reflected in the enjoyment taken from experimentation and disparate forms. An incomplete insight into collective filmmaking is provided by films which date from the 1920s (the Factory of the Eccentric Actor) to today.

In March, the DEFA Foundation is dedicating its monthly film series to one of the DEFA's few female directors, Iris Gusner.

During the Forum we are presenting two films which have been restored by Milestones. They will be screened again as part of the Arsenal program. Shirley Clarke, a pioneer of independent American cinema, began her career as a dancer and turned to filmmaking in the 1950s. In 1962, she founded the New Yorker Film-makers' Cooperative with Jonas Mekas and others.