On the occasion of the FU seminar "French-language Female Filmmakers of Today", we will screen two films by Chantal Akerman.

SUBSTITUTE (Vikash Dhorasoo, Fred Poulet, F 2006). The World Cup 2006 from the perspective of the French national player Vikash Dhorasoo and the writer and musician Fred Poulet. Both shoot with a super-8 camera: the one his everyday experiences as an increasingly frustrated substitute player for the Équipe tricolore; the other everything that happens during his travels throughout Germany and inside the stadium at all the French games. Melancholy instead of euphoria, loneliness instead of "one-for-all-and-all-for-one" rhetoric, a tragic hero instead of a glorious athlete – SUBSTITUTE is the other docu-mentary soccer film. Playing from June 3–9 daily at Arsenal.

"Films in Conflict with the Law, Money and Society" is the theme of this year's colloquium of the Deutschen Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen. Restrictive measures such as censor-ship and age restrictions have accompanied cinema since its birth and prove its—actual or pre-sumed—threat potential. Examples from more than 100 years of film history give insights into the changeability and continuity of censorship decisions and their effects on film historiography, as well as production and distribution practices—something which should not be underestimated. Until today, legal bans, youth protection laws and admission restrictions often enough prove to be a juridical expression of social taboos. Hence, the repeated debates on what may be shown with which means for which purpose, above all reveal the changing norms of society. Conversely, visual provocations and the breaking of taboos are an essential component of cinematic production and actually constitute the condition of existence of certain genres. What is the function of these films maneuvering along the borders of what is allowed and endurable, and how do they find their audi-ence? How do archives deal with unloved, questionable and controversial films? How can one take up the challenges of the Internet as a distribution medium of moving images that are problematic in terms of applicable laws and copyrights? On two days, film scholars, archivists, festival curators, and jurists will examine these and other questions related to banned, cut and scandalized films. On the first day of the colloquium, censorship practices prior to 1930 will be examined in a historical excursion, the cinematic underground movement in Spain under Franco’s dictatorship will be presented, and the self-understanding of archives and the role of the FSK (voluntary self regulation of the movie industry) in evaluating films will be discussed. The second day is dedicated to present-day topics, e.g. putting horror and violent movies on the index, the depiction of sexuality, censorship in authoritarian and multi-religious states such as Nigeria, and not least the Inter-net and its global networks.

Supplementing the Magical History Tour in March of this year, dedicated to "Voice, Language and Speaking in Cinema", we will this month again examine the often little regarded audio track and its suggestive power. Whether on-screen or off-screen sounds, diegetic or not, whether complex audio arrangements, an overwhelming sound or breathless silence: The audio track—consisting of language, music and sounds—is an integral component of cinematic experience. It generates an atmosphere or irritates, anticipates images or contradicts them, intensifies or smothers. It creates a world, a sonic space into which the spectator, depending on the sound system or audio equip-ment of the movie theater, can immerse. Since the mid-1970s, numerous audio-engineering innovations have facilitated the shaping of highly complex sound architectures, on which sound designers, sound editors, Foley artists, and sound mixing technicians work for months. But also beyond sound effects, multi-channel sound, surround sound, and Dolby stereo, multilayered, commanding audio tracks have been and are being created that deserve our attention and raise important question pertaining to the relation of image and sound.

On the occasion of the exhibition, "Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India" at the Deutsche Guggenheim, we will present the film and discussion series, "Moving Politics – Cinemas from India", curated by Dorothee Wenner and Nicole Wolf. Three program blocks with a selection of recent feature and documentary films as well as several classics of Indian film history will give an impression of the diversity with which (film) policies are made in India. At issue are the visual vocabularies of power, the subtle forms with which traditional conditions are on the one hand reinforced and on the other called in question in cinema. Not only ostensibly political films unfold a large scope in this respect. At least from a Western point of view, politics in Indian mainstream cinema at times appears in a quite exotic guise. Independent feature film and documentaries also reflect their time of origin, the production conditions and habits of reception, and come up with peculiar forms of politics and cinematography.

Joaquim Pedro de Andrade was a key figure of the Brazilian Cinema Novo movement. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1932, Andrade developed his passion for cinema at the film club of the university where he studied physics. Popular Brazilian cinema at the time, which mainly consisted of light come-dies, was in a state of decline in the 1950s. The Cinema Novo that began filling this gap had the ambition of not only capturing Brazilian reality in a fresh and realistic manner, but also of entering into a dialog with society and changing it through cinema. The aim was an in all respects independent cinema that detached itself from all foreign models, especially those of Hollywood, and invented its own aesthetic. The Cinema Novo was part of the cultural and economic spirit of a new beginning that gripped Brazil starting in the mid-1950s, the most visible expression of this being the new capital, Brasilia, which was built from scratch in the middle of the jungle. The military coup in 1964, which installed a regime that lasted more than twenty years, did not make itself especially noticeable in regard to culture at first. Only from 1968 on did repression and censorship in the field of culture increase. Many directors went into exile or, if they stayed in the country, were only able to address reality in their films with the help of metaphoric ciphering and shifts. During this time, "tropicalism" emerged, a cinema full of metaphors that made use of the most various influences and, regarding its richness of images, became as unambiguous as possible and as invulnerable as necessary. An important point of reference for the Cinema Novo was the Brazilian Modernismo movement of the 1920s. In the pivotal text of the movement, the Cannibalist Manifesto written by Oswald de Andrade, the call was made to incorporate the most various European and also indige-nous influences so as to achieve an own, impure, wild, and free form of expression.

Following the theme of the Magical History Tour this month, we will show two outstanding pairs of comedians: Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy and Karl Valentin & Liesl Karlstadt.

With a selection of their works on May 21 & 25, we would like to honor Corinne and Arthur Cantrill, who have been making films together for fifty years now. Their joint filmography comprises more than 150 works ranging from documentaries to experimental films, from multi-screen installations to performances. The main emphasis of their work has been and is on the filmic examination of themes such as landscape, color, light, and the history and technology of film. International retrospectives and exhibitions of their works have led them to Berlin, where they stayed for several months as grant recipients of the DAAD. Several of their films are in the stocks of Arsenal. Among other films, we will screen 4000 FRAMES (1970), HEAT SHIMMER (1978), NOTES ON THE PASSAGE OF TIME (1979), and NOTES ON BERLIN (1986).

We are delighted that the film scholar Dominique Bluher will give an introduction to the event on May 21.

In 1898 the technology lover Edwin S. Porter began working for the Edison Company as a cameraman. While people in Europe experimented with the language of film, he developed the possibilities of “realistic film narration”: A man who has assaulted his wife is tarred and feathered, an eagle grabs the baby of a nuclear family on a weekend excursion, a bear shoots the parent bears to steal its little one, a penniless ex-convict saves the child of a rich family to then abduct it. Silent-movie expert Vaginal Davis guides us through a family program accompanied by the musicians John and Tim Blue. (May 30)