Arsenal (Film Institute)

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Logo of the Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art e. V.

The Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art e. V. is one of the Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek e. V. emerged association for the promotion of film and video art in Berlin .

Emergence

The Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek e.V., founded on March 30, 1963 . V. changed its name to Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art on November 1st, 2008 . V. This name comes from the club's own Arsenal cinema , which the Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek opened in 1970. The cinema got its name from the 1929 silent film Arsenal .

The renaming was associated with a changed program structure and a new appearance of the association. All areas of activity are highlighted under the new name.

The work of the new arsenal includes the following priorities:

  • arsenal kino : Daily cinema program in the two halls of the Arsenal cinema
  • arsenal transfer : symposia, panel discussions, workshops on film and video art
  • arsenal collection : The association's film collection with approx. 9,000 works
  • arsenal distribution : Distribution program of around 2,000 titles
  • Berlinale Forum : International Forum of New Cinema , which the club since 1971 as part of the Berlin International Film Festival aligns
  • arsenal service : Advice and research opportunities for curators, scientists and those interested in film
  • arsenal edition : books and DVDs on the association's programs

history

On March 30, 1963, on the initiative of the film historian Gero Gandert, the Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek e. V. founded. The association wanted to make the film holdings of the Deutsche Kinemathek, which had been set up immediately before, accessible to the public and also to carry out continuous film-cultural work with films from other archives and with contemporary films.

The founding members were Gero Gandert and Ulrich Gregor , who also became one of the chairmen of the association, together with Reinold E. Thiel , a journalist and film critic, as well as the directors Helmut Käutner and Hansjürgen Pohland , the critics Friedrich Luft and Karena Niehoff and the book antiquarian Carl Wegener . The association showed films for the first time in the Academy of Arts on May 25, 1963 - a. a. " The wax museum " from 1924 as well as short films from the Munich school . Initially with monthly programs, they expanded their offerings to include bi-weekly programs, film weeks and film series. On November 4, 1966, they also began to show artistically demanding and historically interesting film programs in night programs in the “Bellevue” cinema on Hansaplatz at 11 p.m. All venues developed into meeting points for film culture and politics.

With the turn of the year 1968/1969 a troubled time began. The events were disrupted because the association did not want to change into a “political task force of the working class”. The joint event organized by the Academy of Arts and Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek e. V. was almost blown up. The rhythm of the film events was reduced. At an extraordinary general meeting on April 28, 1969, the membership structure was changed after the demand for a "democratization" of the association structure was made from outside. The film screenings took place only irregularly, also at places not previously used by the association such as the “Lichtspiele Bundesplatz ”, the “ Landesbildstelle ”, the “Zentrifuge” theater in Sybelstrasse and the “Zodiac Kreuzberg” in the Haus der Schaubühne .

Since 1965 at the latest, the “Friends” have also had an affiliated film distribution company. In the early days of film distribution, film directors or producers left the copies of their films to their "friends" with the certainty that they would actually receive the agreed distribution shares, as guaranteed by the good names of the board of directors and the managing director, who was even liable under private law in some contracts. Skillful use of the meager means of the “forum”, the waiver of salary shares and the clever arrangement with the “Berliner Festspiele GmbH.” Made it possible to acquire film copies of many of the films shown there from forum means and the cultural film work in Germany and even abroad to provide. For many years this part of the budget was controversial and envied by IFB observers.

In the summer of 1969, from June 29 to July 6, extensive special events took place in the Academy of the Arts on the occasion of the Berlin International Film Festival, and a program newspaper was also published, an unusual event overall. At the same time, the takeover of a venerable cinema in-house was discussed. After the initially unclear financial situation, after Manfred Salzgeber's assignment in 1969, the “Bayreuth Lichtspiele” could be acquired with borrowed money. On January 3, 1970, their own cinema, now called "Arsenal", opened at Welserstraße 25 in Berlin-Schöneberg. It was characterized by an exuberant film program with three to five different film programs daily.

Furthermore, the association continuously publishes film literature, mostly as accompanying reading to current film series, conceived material collections and essays. The "Kinemathek" series currently comprises 99 titles, the "Materials on Film History" series was unfortunately discontinued after 15 issues.

In June 2000, the association left the original premises and moved to a more modern setting in the Filmhaus in the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz , which also houses the Berlin Film Museum and the Berlin German Film and Television Academy . In March 2002 the Berlin Senate cut funding for the “Friends” and the Arsenal cinema, but withdrew these cuts in June 2002. However, the association remained underfunded and had to pay high sums of money for rent and operating costs at the Filmhaus on Potsdamer Platz. Finally, in 2004, the “Friends” were included in the funding of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media .

Milena Gregor , Birgit Kohler and Stefanie Schulte-Strathaus currently make up the board of the association .

Berlinale Forum

The special program on the occasion of the Berlin International Film Festival in 1970 had far-reaching consequences . When the jury resigned because of the protests about Michael Verhoeven's anti-Vietnam War film ok and the film festival collapsed with a scandal, the friends organized a counter-event as an alternative for the frustrated journalists at home and abroad.

With the experience of the previous year, the association organizes the International Forum of New Films ( Forum for short ) in 1971 . The former counter-event has now been integrated into the Berlinale as an independent, self-administered and equal festival alongside the traditional competition. The public and, to a large extent, internal discussion in the relevant cultural circles and political bodies that followed this very successful first forum meant that the forum was able to continue its work from 1972. Applications for the re-allocation of the funds had to be submitted every year, and sometimes approval was only obtained during the festival.

The forum has been a section of the Berlinale since 2005, but it is organized independently of the film festival. The “forum sheets” that accompanied every film in the program are legendary.

Film collection / rental

The founding of the forum also laid the foundation for today's Arsenal film collection. Many of the Forum's films remained in the Arsenal after the festival ended. In 1972 the first rental program was launched. Regarding the creation of an own distribution company, it says: With the remaining titles from the forum program "it has finally become possible not only to have film festivals held in one place and at one time, but also to have the new films of a festival available to all other institutions who do work with the medium of film that is not organized around commerce. " The film collection was of particular importance for the dissemination of international film developments in Germany, such as the films of the Third Cinema in the 1970s or the Asian New Waves of the 1980s. For several years now, the historical film collection has been separated from the current distribution. The former has been operating under the name arsenal kollektion since then, the latter under arsenal distribution . Since 2011, the Arsenal has had to develop its own film collection in the living archive project, financed separately by the German Federal Cultural Foundation , and to question whether it is up to date.

The in-house distributor arsenal distribution brings about 10 films onto the market every year. arsenal distribution distributes some of the most important German documentaries of recent years: such as the films by Berlin filmmaker Philip Scheffner Der Tag des Spatzen (film) and Revision (film) , as well as material (film) and solar system (film) some of the documentaries by Thomas Heise .

All films from the arsenal collection and arsenal distribution can be researched online in the Arsenal film database.

Awards

The Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek e. V. received several awards:

literature

  • Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art (Ed.): Living Archive. Archive work as contemporary artistic and curatorial practice, Berlin, bbooks 2013.
  • Gregor, Ulrich: The Berlin Arsenal. In: Karsten Witte (Hrsg.): Theory of the cinema. Ideological criticism of the dream factory, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp 1972, pp. 256–264.
  • Tietke, Fabian: The third cinema in the archive. In: Lukas Foerster, Nikolaus Perneczky, Fabian Tietke, Cecilia Valenti (eds.): Traces of a Third Cinema. On the aesthetics, politics and economy of world cinema. Transcript, Bielefeld 2013, pp. 23-40. (The text is an examination of the collection practice of the Arsenal, especially the collection of the Third Cinema.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. See also Der Verein Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art
  2. Ulrich Gregor: Plea for a new distribution program, in: Friends of the Deutsche Kinemathek eV (Ed.): Verleihprogamm 72/73, Berlin, Selbstverlag 1972, pp. 1–3 (unnumbered in print). Quoted here from: Fabian Tietke: The Third Cinema in the Archive. In: Lukas Foerster, Nikolaus Perneczky, Fabian Tietke, Cecilia Valenti (eds.): Traces of a Third Cinema. On the aesthetics, politics and economy of world cinema. Transcript, Bielefeld 2013, pp. 23–40, here p. 26.
  3. ^ Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art V. . Arsenal project website. Retrieved May 12, 2017.
  4. ^ Arsenal film database . Retrieved May 12, 2017.