Das Kino Projekt

DAS KINO PROJEKT is a traveling movie theater screening an archive of amateur analog film, on Super 8 and 16mm, side by side with video works from international visual artists and filmmakers. It is an on-site installation investing in new and temporary locations as it travels from one city to another. Following in-depth research of the respective city’s cinema history, the Kino takes on the name of a former movie theatre that was closed down, demolished, or transformed. As part of Forum Expanded, DAS KINO PROJEKT will show a selection of its neon signs, which were produced for each city the cinema has visited in the past ten years. The project started in Beirut and is a homage to vanished cinema culture worldwide. In 2011 the DAS KINO PROJEKT traveled to Aleppo and, due to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, could not be realized on site and has not been until today.
From March 18 to 20 the Kino Projekt will take place in Berlin as a drive-in cinema showing a rich program with a special focus on Syria, Lebanon, and the MENA region.

Siska’s work often questions the ruination of Arab cultural heritage. His use of film language and codes of cinematography as strategic mediations to activate an archive allows him to experiment with new forms of storytelling and his own biography. Siska’s work has been exhibited internationally, including Gropius Bau, Berlin, Centquartre-Paris, Beirut Exhibition Center, Mosaic Rooms, London. Siska’s BAYNA HAYAKEL STUDIO BAALBECK (2017) was part of Forum Expanded 2018.

Production company Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH (Berlin, Germany). Director Siska a.k.a Elie Habib. Assistant director Franziska Pierwoss. Executive producer Siska a.k.a Elie Habib. 

Films

2009: Trio a study on horses in the city (15 min.). 2011: E.D.L (Eléctricité Du Liban) (21 min.). 2012: Visit to the white house (3 min.). 2013: Golden Rush (40 min.). 2014: A tragic tale of fire, water, and radon (3 min.). 2015: Die Gespenterei 2 (6 min.). 2017: Bayna Hayakel Studio Baalbeck (48 min., Forum Expanded 2018). 2019: Latent Border(s) (18 min.). 2020: Independance Day A Work in Progress (7 min.). 2021: Das Kino Projekt / The Cinema Project.