Archival Assembly #2

The program of the second edition of Archival Assembly can be seen at three locations in Berlin: Arsenal cinema, silent green Kulturquartier and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA.

The complete program of the festival here

Symposium Accidental Archivism

Together with the master’s program “Film Culture: Archiving, Programming, Presentation” at the Goethe University Frankfurt, a symposium will be held on June 9 and 10. The theme is the title of a new book Accidental Archivism: Shaping Cinema’s Futures with Remnants of the Past edited by Vinzenz Hediger and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, and published in the series Configurations of Film by meson press. The concept of “Accidental Archivism”—a term coined by Nigerian filmmaker, critic, and curator Didi Cheeka—runs through all areas of the festival as a model that sha kes up established and deadlocked structures, engendering lasting change through encounters with life as it is marked by crises but also by everyday events.

Film archives in a war

Archives, and thus cultural memory, are in particular danger in times of war and crisis. At the same time, new image archives are violently generated and superimposed on the archive of (collective) memory. Olena Honcharuk (acting director of the Dozhenko Centre in Kyiv) and Maria Hlazunova (Dovzhenko Centre & contributor to the NGO project Ukraine War Archive Архів війни (ukrainewararchive.org), will talk about this and other topics with Barbara Wurm.

Tribute to Petna Ndaliko Katondolo

A tribute is dedicated to the Congolese filmmaker and founder of the cultural center Yole!Africa, Petna Ndaliko Katondolo, who, faced with the patterns of colonial representation in film history, began to look behind these images in order to develop his own Afrofuturist style from there.

Filmscreenings at Arsenal cinema and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA

A number of restoration projects from the history of independent cinema will be presented, among them FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES by Lindsey Merrison (2001), about the cult of “Nats” in Burma, which are considered supernatural beings and victims of a dominant system, and KARA KAFA (Black Head) by Korhan Yurtsever (1979), a Turkish-German production on labor migration.

New productions include DEAREST FIONA (2023), a work by Fiona Tan, in which she combines material from the Eye Filmmuseum with letters from her father, and XARAASI XANNE – CROSSING VOICES (2022) by Raphaël Grisey and Bouba Touré, which uses material from Touré’s private archive to portray the agricultural collective Somankidi Coura.

Exhibiton at silent green Betonhalle „How to know what’s really happening“

From June 8 to July 2, the exhibition How to know what’s really happening takes place, curated by Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis. Archival work confronts us with criminalistic questions: How do we enter a space or a crime scene, how do we move through it, how were archives built or destroyed, and how can we reconstruct them?

Series „Found Futures“

As part of the series "Found Futures", conceived with the Goethe Institut, participants present projects and share ideas, knowledge, or questions with regard to precarious archives and archival findings. Accidental archivists receive advice on how to build archive structures, artistic and curatorial suggestions, and practical support.

Found Futures I: Archive/Counter-Archive | Revolutionary Producer. Revolutionary Archive
Mon 12.06. 10:00–13:00 h

Found Futures II: Brigada Archivología Chile / Exil DDR | Jordanian-Soviet Friendship Society
Tue 13.06. 10:00–13:00 h

Found Futures III: Cinema-ye Azad | archipelago | Film Undone. Elements of a Latent Cinema
Wed 14.06. 10:00–13:00 h

Found Futures IV: Home movies of Don Vitalini | Cinelimite & Syros International Film Festival
Thu 15.06. 10:00–13:00 h

Archival Assembly #2 is a collaboration with Goethe University Frankfurt, Goethe-Institut, silent green Kulturquartier, and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA.

Practical information

Arsenal cinema
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
www.arsenal-berlin.de

Arsenal 3

silent green Kulturquartier
Gerichtstraße 35
13347 Berlin
www.silent-green.net

SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
Lindowerstr 20/22 Haus C
13347 Berlin
www.sinematranstopia.de

To gain access to paid festival events, you can either buy individual tickets at the cinemas or purchase a festival pass. You can attend the exhibition, symposium, Found Futures, and other select project presentations for free.

Festival pass: € 80, € 70 reduced
The festival pass is available exclusively at the Arsenal box office. Access to film screenings, project presentations, and performances for festival pass holders is only possible by acquiring a free ticket at the box office in conjunction with the festival pass. The pass is non-transferable and only valid in connection with an official photo ID. Please note that there is no guarantee of tickets for specific events or a certain amount of tickets. Festival passes are issued based on availability, following a “first-come, first-served” basis.

Film screenings at Kino Arsenal: Guests: € 9, members: € 6.
To attend multiple events at Kino Arsenal, we recommend a membership at the price of € 12/€ 9 and the purchase of discounted multiple screening tickets (6 screenings: € 24). Free admission for members of the Arsenal Freundeskreis.
Tickets: www.kinotickets.online/arsenal-berlin/movies

Film screenings at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA: € 7
Tickets at www.sinematranstopia.com

Admission to the symposium Accidental Archivism: Shaping Cinema’s Futures with Remnants of the Past as well as Found Futures and marked project presentations at Arsenal Cinema is free. We encourage you to register for the symposium at archive@arsenal-berlin.de.

The films of Maike Mia Höhne and Lindsey Merrison will be available online on Arsenal 3 from the day after their screenings.

The exhibtion How to know what’s really happening at silent green Kulturquartier (Betonhalle): free admission.

The complete program of Archival Assembly #2 as PDF

AA2_FINAL_web.pdf (PDF 4 MB)