City 46
The City 46 is a municipal theater in Bremen . It was founded in 1974 and known by the short name Koki . Initially, it showed its films primarily as a joint user of an existing cinema in the so-called quarter , a district in the center of Bremen. In the early 1990s, the communal cinema moved to Waller Heerstraße 46 in the Walle district of Bremen , where it had its own premises for the first time. The house number 46 went into the now adopted name Kino 46 . Since October 7, 2011 - after moving to Birkenstrasse 1 in downtown Bremen - it has been called City 46 .
The annual International Symposium on Film has been held in City 46 since 1995 , a film- related event in cooperation with the University of Bremen , which has been initiated since 1999 with the award of the Bremen Film Prize . In the varied program of the cinema, which is often planned in cooperation with a large number of partners in the city, there is also the annual queer film festival .
City 46 has two cinema halls and a seminar room. As a non-commercial communal cinema, it is a member of the Federal Association of Communal Film Work .
History of the communal cinema in Bremen
City 46 has its roots in the 1970s: Originating from the environment of the student movement and as a result of the Oberhausen Manifesto of 1962, which turned avant-garde against “Grandpa's cinema” of Heimatfilme, communal cinemas emerged in many places. Among the first were the filmforum Duisburg in 1970 and the municipal cinema in Frankfurt am Main in 1971 . A group of people found themselves in Bremen in 1973, including the then owner of the Cinema im Ostertor, Gerd Settje, the professor Irmbert Schenk from the University of Bremen, which opened in 1971, and the filmmaker Günther Hörmann from the Chamber of Labor University, which on October 11, 1973 the sponsoring association Kommunalkino Bremen e. V. founded. This makes the Bremen municipal cinema one of the first and therefore oldest municipal cinemas in Germany . The declared motto of the cinemas, also known as KoKi , was “Show other films differently”. The KoKi Bremens sees itself to this day as a place in which film is cultivated as a cultural asset to be preserved, instead of being handed over to the fast marketing chain “cinema - video - television - eternal immersion”.
The association was financially supported by the Bremen Senate from the beginning with varying amounts . However, there was no hall of its own for 19 years, the KoKi was a guest in other cinemas and venues. It was not until 1993 that it was able to move into its own premises under the name Kino 46 . In 2011 there was another move to the current venue in downtown Bremen, now as City 46 .
The Kommunalkino Bremen e. V. as a subtenant
The sponsoring association of KoKi Bremen was initially dependent on existing cinemas granting it playing times, because there was no money for a separate hall. Under the name of Kommunalkino Bremen e. V. the films were shown in different cinemas, the KoKi was, so to speak, a subtenant there. Until it moved to the Walle district in 1993, the local cinema played its films primarily in the cinema in the Ostertor in the district , a district that is heavily influenced by students and alternatives. The Atlantis in Böttcherstraße and the former Mühlenbach Lichtspiele in Lesum were also regular hosts of KoKi, it showed its films in many parts of the city and in institutions. a. in the correctional facility Oslebshausen . The KoKi stocked up to eight venues throughout the city on individual dates every month.
In particular , the KoKi has been working together for decades with the art house Cinema im Ostertor. As a rule, however, the films could only be shown four to five times a week at 6 p.m., the more profitable evening screenings were generally reserved for art house cinema. In isolated cases, the cooperation was therefore viewed critically: KoKi member Gerd Settje was also the owner of the commercially operated cinema and benefited from state funding, as the KoKi ensured that the cinema guaranteed income for the KoKi seasons in the late afternoon and early evening would have.
The filmmakers implemented their strict programmatic requirements with the opening film. On May 7, 1974, in front of an audience of 203 people, they showed the proletarian film Kuhle Wampe by Bert Brecht and Slatan Dudow from 1932. In retrospect, a journalist described the KoKi program in the 1970s as “progressive, sparse fare with revolutionaries Works from Latin America, films about the world of work, a bit of Herzog and Buñuel and, for fun, just a comedy by Jacques Tati ”. In addition to the focal points mentioned, there were also curated film series, for example on the “Situation of Women” and Italian Neorealism . Later, the cinema also gained national recognition in 1988 with the “May '68 and the Film” festival. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , the association and the Bremen Chamber of Employees presented a selection of contributions from the 32nd Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week in 1989, which were shown at the Berlinale at the same time . A year later, the series “Between the Times - Films by DEFA Documentary Directors from 1989 to 1990”, which was created in cooperation with the Bremer Con-Filmverleih and the East Berlin Cinema Babylon , was launched in 40 cities in Germany. Austria and Switzerland made guest appearances.
In the early days, the city-subsidized cinema was politically very controversial. At the start of the project, the press reported some very negative reports and suspected, among other things, “ideological missionary cinema”. In some cases there was considerable resistance from the political establishment , and the initiators of the cinema were even personally attacked. From the CDU came the assumption that in a “chaotic Maoist sense” this should “contribute to social and system change”.
The number of visitors, on the other hand, developed quite well from the start. According to journalist Jürgen Francke, they were “not bad” compared to other cities. In a review of 1993, he traces the “ups and downs” of communal cinema back to the not always constant cultural policy of the SPD- led Bremen Senate. The KoKi had to fight for every mark .
The desire for their own venue lived on. The association's efforts to find its own location together with the city have never been given up. At the end of the 1980s, the plans became more specific. After a planning phase of a total of five years and a "years of guerrilla warfare between users and landlords" of the proposed premises, the location for the next 19 years was found.
The time in Walle as Kino 46
In 1993, "In the shadow of the Bremen TV tower " in Walle, "the film and video scene of the smallest federal state should awaken to new life". The communal cinema moved into the newly created media center in Walle and was able to move into its own theater in the immediate vicinity of the location of the former Decla cinema. In addition to the municipal cinema, five other associations and initiatives from the city's audiovisual spectrum moved to Waller Heerstraße 46, including Filmbüro Bremen e. V. as well as today's Makemedia-Studio , a video project for schoolchildren, which at that time was still operating under Null Satt . Later, a café with changing art exhibitions was added in the entrance area of the complex. However, Walle was not a desired location for the communal cinema, but rather a "toad to swallow": The Bremen Senate envisioned a cultural revitalization of the district with the establishment of the media center, the communal cinema feared losing its regular audience. But this was the only way to enforce your own venue.
With the move, the cinema was renamed. Based on the house number of the media center, the sponsoring association named the venue Kino 46 . Located on the second floor of a white new building, it had a room with 168 seats, a 7 mx 3 m screen and a Dolby Surround system. A few adjoining side rooms housed the offices of the five (more or less permanent) employees. Among them was the current director of the cinema, Karl-Heinz Schmid, since 1986, the current deputy director and theater director Alfred Tews, who has been part of the team since 1989, and the then director Christine Rüffert, who worked as a freelance teacher at the communal cinema.
A sign of recognition from the busy main street was a large mural that still exists today. Wall painting is a form of public art that is widespread in the Bremen cityscape. The aforementioned work of art shows Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd, two stars of the Black Series (also known as film noir ), in a still image from the 1942 film The Scarred Hand . This mural was designed and painted by the Bremen artist Ulrich Precht . The celebratory unveiling of the mural took place in October 1993, accompanied by Walles “Dorf-Poet” and former Taz columnist Ulrich Reineking-Drügemöller , and the then green Bremen Senator for Culture Helga Trüpel was also present . She had implemented the KoKi move to Walle, initiated by her predecessor Horst Werner Franke .
The new venue was inaugurated with Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's film Faust - a German folk tale from 1926 with live piano accompaniment and the French arthouse film Delicatessen from 1991. From now on there was a “full program”: several films every day, including in the evenings during main season. Soon after its founding in 1974, the KoKi had left its strict political and programmatic aspirations behind. In the meantime it had opened up to other contributions as well, “ Hollywood films , the great commerce then” were by no means categorically excluded in Kino 46. New film series and festivals were planned and shown. One or more silent films with live music should also be shown regularly each month .
However, the staff at Kino 46 feared that they could lose half of the previous audience, most of them neighborhood residents: In Bremen, they are notorious for their reluctance to leave their very central district to go out. On the other hand, however, the sponsoring association of the cinema hoped to attract new visitors from the west of Bremen. A year after the move, the operators said that both assumptions had been confirmed. With its location in the west of Bremen, Kino 46 was actually able to tap into new sections of the population. A children's film festival had already been held in the cinema together with the Bremen film office. In Walle, however, the children's film area was able to be expanded, especially since the cinema makers had identified a great need here and were quickly able to tap into a regular audience.
Overall, Kino 46 was able to quickly establish itself at the new location. Less than a year after the opening, the city magazine Bremer certified the cinema as “by far the most unusual” cinema program in Bremen and gave it six out of six possible stars as one of three cinema halls in Bremen. In its assessment, the magazine also honored the “hybrid role” of KoKi as “district cinema for the west and avant-garde cinema for all of Bremen”.
In the cinema, the annual “International Symposium on Film” and the “Queer Film Festival” established themselves from 1994/1995, the roots of which were still in the time as a subtenant in the cinema. In 2000, Kino 46 was awarded the newly created “Federal Cinema Prize” for the best program in a non-commercial cinema in a city with over 500,000 inhabitants. The prize was donated by the German Kinematheksverbund and was endowed with 10,000 marks. Further awards followed: from 2000 onwards, the cinema received regular awards from the Bremen-Lower Saxony media company nordmedia for its annual program. It has now taken third place several times at the Federal Cinema Prize.
After a longer period of establishment and routine, another phase of uncertainty followed in 2007. Before Bremen's application as European Capital of Culture for 2010 failed, the Senate had repeatedly made up for the deficits in the cultural budget from special funds. This was followed by a change of direction, the cultural funding should be more reliable, but also less. For a long time, however, it was questionable whether Kino 46 would survive this restructuring. In addition, the lease for the media center was due to expire in autumn 2011; an extension was out of the question for financial reasons. Without its own cinema, the continued existence of the communal cinema was in jeopardy, because the association did not want to sublet an existing venue again. After a long search and winning some support, the communal cinema found a suitable location in the rooms of the City Center Cinema, which was closed in early 2010 . In May 2011 the move of Kino 46 was decided by the Senate's cultural deputation. The operators simply took the addition 46 with them, the prefix Kino was replaced by the traditional City : City 46 was created.
As City 46 in the city center
Bremen city center has a long cinema tradition, the city center has been the first address for cinema goers for decades. The first “moving images” were shown in Bremen in August 1896 as part of an exhibition of various machines on the corner of Sögestraße / Am Wall, less than 100 meters from today's City 46. The first permanent shop cinemas with up to 200 seats as well as the masterpiece built in 1908 in Ansgaritorstrasse and the first large cinema Metropol of the United Theaters Hagen and Sander were also located in the city center.
Thanks to a financial agreement with the city, the association was able to renovate the more central location near the main train station according to its own ideas. The new venue was opened on October 7, 2011 with a benefit gala.
Das City : history and current equipment
When moving the local cinemas to former City was of the long line of movie theaters in the downtown area, only the cinema Atlantis still exists and the first opened in 1998 and multiplex cinema Cinemaxx at the Central Station. The City Cinema itself only closed its doors (initially) in February 2010 and can look back on more than 50 years of history as a venue.
History of the City Cinema
For a long time, the City was operated jointly with the Europa . At the back of the City , in Bahnhofstrasse, Europa was founded in 1926 as a premium venue for the Bremen cinema chain Luedtke und Heiligers. In addition to many new cinemas, City , which opened in 1957, was part of the Heiligers empire. Three years before the Heiligers retired from operational business and leased their cinemas, they had some modern cinema buildings built with the City and other venues .
With numerous light and color effects in the interior design, the City, like the equally representative Europe, was considered to be “ultra-modern” and “dead chic”. Glass blocks in the outer facade, a great novelty at the time, let daylight fall into the large hall until the performance began. The film flickered on the wide screen in the CinemaScope - or even in the 3D process of the time.
In the 1990s, both cinemas were owned by Hans-Joachim Flebbe's cinema group . This began to turn away from single venues with its multiplex cinema, the Cinemaxx , which opened in Hanover in 1991 . Therefore, at the beginning of 1995, it gave the venues with a total of four halls to two long-established Bremen cinema operators “for a 'bearable price'”. The operator of the Schauburg Manfred Brocki and the operator of the Cinema Thomas Settje, son of KoKi co-founder Gerd Settje, had, actually competitors, teamed up for the project. The previous program manager, Heinz Rigbers, stayed and the new operators hoped that by the time the Cinemaxx opened at the train station, they would have made a name for themselves so that they would not have to fear these “cinema giants”.
However, Europe could not be held in the long run. The hall, which was rated as tasteful by the city magazine Bremer in 1993 and classified as one of the best in Bremen, gave way to a uniform Rossmann branch soon after the opening of the Cinemaxx . The City with its three halls was later operated as an aftermath cinema with low entrance fees. In 2007, the Bremen Improvisation Theater took on a sub-tenant who received its audience in Hall 2 even after the cinema was closed in 2010.
Equipment of today's City 46
When the communal cinema moved in in 2011, no major renovations were made, especially since the operators wanted to retain the charm of the 1950s. The foyer on the ground floor was renovated as was the rest of the premises. In the staircase to the cinema halls on the second floor, the mirror wall from the 1950s has been preserved, the upper foyer has been made lighter and larger. The three halls of the City were retained in the existing layout. The sanitary facilities have been refurbished. It was not possible to make the rooms completely handicapped accessible, but access to the cinema halls is provided by a second stairwell with elevator in the building.
Halls
The City 46 has two cinemas and a seminar room. The large hall, Kino 1, accommodates 160 seats on 160 m², its equipment was rated by Cornelia Klauß from the Federal Association of Communal Film Work as "very appropriate in its design". In contrast to the venue in Walle, where the seats were kept in a sober blue, the new cinema seats are classic red. The glass blocks in the outer wall, which in the early days of the City Cinema had to be darkened with a curtain, have long since been covered and remained so during the renovation in 2011.
A second hall has 90 seats on 100 m². Well-preserved blue cinema seats from the Waller location were installed in this studio cinema. Cinema 2 is still played on Fridays by the Improtheater Bremen, which financed the new, now wider stage and the floor construction, the rows of seats now rise more than before. Concerts and readings will also take place in Kino 2.
In the former cinema 3, now a seminar room and cinema school for media-educational events, there are around 60 places on 60 m², but there is no fixed seating. A previously clad window front over almost the entire length of the room was exposed in the course of the renovation. According to the operators, the establishment of this seminar room specifically for filming is unique in a cinema in Germany.
Overall, the number of seats in the halls has been reduced, in some cases considerably, compared to the previous layout, in order to give the audience more legroom. The number of seats in the large auditorium fell from 234 to 160, in cinema 2 from 120 to 90 and in cinema 3 from 100 to approx. 60.
technology
The City 46 has a mixture of analog and digital technology, the cinema is set up for a variety of media forms. Depending on the material, films are played from the classic 35 mm film copy , from DVD or, in the meantime, from Blu-ray . There are also playback options for the now rare 16 mm and 8 mm film formats . The cinema has had a modern DLP projector since 2014 . There are several Philips projectors with continuously adjustable projection speeds for showing silent films, a feature that is rare even in communal cinemas. This possibility of variable speed is necessary for silent films because there was no standard speed before the introduction of the sound film . This was only introduced with the sound film, as sound only knows one correct playback speed and thus forces the image to standardize over time.
Funding and funding
The operation of the City 46 is based on a pronounced mixed calculation. First of all, it has been supported by the city with varying sums of money since its inception. In addition to state funding, it has its own income from entrance fees and gastronomy , and it seeks third-party funding, for example from various film funding institutions and prize money from media companies. The cinema also benefits greatly from cooperation with co-organizers and media in the city.
The members and sponsoring members of the association themselves contribute part of the income. As part of the move, so-called chair sponsorships were increasingly given, the sponsors are named on a wooden sculpture in the foyer of the cinema.
Programming
The programming of City 46 is characterized by film series and collaborations with partners in the city. With the move, the KoKi has also decided to further expand the film-mediating area of the cinema. The revised concept is also intended to institutionalize and intensify the previous collaboration with the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Bremen , also programmatically. Cornelia Klauß attests to the operators that they have taken a “high conceptual risk”, since the aim now is to bring the media-educational and film-mediating approach pursued by the City 46 operators to life as a unique selling point.
Focus and partners
The cinema shows a few hundred films a year. The program ranges from experimental films to children's cinema. Some constants run through the program, especially the cooperation with partners in the city mentioned above. The cinema enters into a few dozen collaborations a year with a wide variety of institutions. For example, exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Bremen or the Überseemuseum are sometimes accompanied by film series, and the KoKi has a longstanding collaboration in the field of experimental film with the Weserburg Museum . The Instituto Cervantes, founded in 1995, and the Institut français with the annual French series Cinéfête are constant partners of City 46. There are also collaborations with the Chamber of Employees and with Nordwestradio , which accompanies the long-standing series “Mein Film”, in which one of a well-known Bremen native is shown.
Thanks to this cooperation, according to journalist Alexandra Albrecht, the cinema is always attracting new people. Over the years, numerous film series on individual topics have been curated and performed, on countries, continents, directors, there have been and are experimental film series , documentary film series and short film series . The operators show many films that, according to Managing Director Schmid, no one else in town would play, for example African and Asian productions. In addition, an increasing number of smaller film distributors are now turning to the cinema who cannot place their films for the premiere in the big theaters. For all films, it is important for the cinema makers to show them in the original version whenever possible .
Another important program item in the cinema is the showing of silent films with live musical accompaniment, among others with the pianist and silent film accompanist Ezzat Nashashibi or the Bremen State Youth Orchestra.
The KoKi also relies on teaching film and media skills . The newly established cinema school in the former cinema 3 is used, among other things, in the current series "ABC des Autorfilms " and the "Schule des Sehens" in cooperation with the university. Young cinema-goers should also be reached with offers such as the weekly children's cinema. City 46 is a regional partner for the school cinema weeks, a joint project between film distributors and educational institutions. According to the cinema, the response to the program is growing from year to year; At the end of 2011, the total number of visitors to the school cinema weeks was around 13,000 at all participating venues.
Queer Film Festival
Since 1994, the Queer Film Festival, a gay, lesbian and transgender film festival, has been taking place in the Bremen municipal cinema . The event, which is usually very well attended, is primarily organized on a voluntary basis by "cinema enthusiasts" gays and lesbians. The selection of films is made in collaboration with the KoKi team and follows a certain parity between art and romance, between gay and lesbian films.
International symposium on film
Every year in January the “International Symposium on Film” is organized in the communal cinema. The symposium is a permanent cooperation between Department 9 of the University of Bremen and the KoKi. It was launched in 1995 as part of the UNESCO project “100 Years of Cinema”. Every year the event focuses on a different topic in the field of film, on which lectures are then given by speakers from Germany and abroad. The speakers choose suitable films for their contributions that complement the program.
The event is considered to be “audience-oriented yet scientifically sound” and has “earned a good reputation nationwide with this rare mixture”, according to the Weser Kurier. After the event, the contributions will now be published in an anthology by the organizers. Previous speakers from the fields of film history , film theory and media studies include a number of well-known scientists and authors, including Laura Mulvey , Enno Patalas , Georg Seeßlen , Thomas Elsaesser , Elisabeth Bronfen , Klaus Kreimeier and Alain Robbe-Grillet .
Bremen Film Prize
The Bremen Film Prize has been awarded as part of the symposium since 1999. It is donated by the Gut für Bremen Foundation of the Sparkasse Bremen ; the award ceremony takes place every year at the start of the symposium in Bremen's town hall .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d see mam: "" Missionary cinema "has successfully survived", in: Weser Kurier from May 5, 1994
- ↑ a b c d e f see Alexandra Albrecht: "Here your eyes open", in: Weser Kurier from May 1, 2004
- ↑ a b c “30 Years of the Municipal Cinema Bremen, 1974–2004”, brochure of the Municipal Cinema for the 30th anniversary
- ↑ a b c d e f g see Jürgen Francke: "Kuhle Wampe zur Prime Time?", In: taz bremen from January 6, 1993, p. 19
- ↑ a b c see Wilfried Hippen: “Reservat for the other cinema”, reprint of an article from the Bremen magazine Foyer from 1994 in “30 years of the municipal cinema Bremen, 1974–2004”, brochure of the municipal cinema for the 30th anniversary
- ↑ Jürgen Francke: "Warm cameras", in: taz bremen of February 10, 1990, p. 27
- ↑ Beate Ramm: "DEFA Documentary Film Festival in Bremen", in: taz bremen of April 18, 1991, p. 23
- ↑ Article “Ideologisches Missionarskino”, in: BBZ from May 24, 1974
- ↑ So the former mayor of Bremen Henning Scherf in a greeting in “30 Years of the Municipal Cinema Bremen, 1974-2004”, brochure of the municipal cinema for the 30th anniversary
- ↑ a b c see tom: "New roles for the cinema", in: taz bremen from May 5, 1994
- ^ A b Karl Wilhelm: "" 46 ": The new pearl of Walle", in: Achimer Kreiszeitung from February 9, 1993
- ↑ a b ave: “Cinema takes root in Walle”, in: Wochenblatt of May 11, 1994
- ↑ ck: "Cineastin auf Abruf", in: taz bremen of June 12, 2001, p. 23
- ^ "Two black series stars show the way", in: Weser Kurier from the picture of October 18, 1993
- ↑ a b see "Extra - Kino Check", in: Bremer from November 1993
- ↑ a b see Alexandra Albrecht: “Bremen's great culture check”, in: Weser Kurier from May 4, 2011
- ↑ "Film aus", in: taz bremen from November 2007
- ↑ See Jan Zier: "Kino 46 shall get out of the west", in: Kreiszeitung from November 17, 2008
- ↑ a b c d e see Cornelia Klauß: “The long way from cinema 46 to the city. The new opening of the municipal cinema City 46 in Bremen “, in: kinema kommunal 03/2011
- ↑ Dorothea Breitenfeld and Jutta Reinke: “Kino in Bremen. Contributions to a Bremen cinema history ”, 2nd edition 1995
- ↑ Dorothea Breitenfeld and Jutta Reinke: “Kino in Bremen. Contributions to a Bremen cinema history ”, 2nd edition 1995, p. 5 f.
- ↑ Dorothea Breitenfeld and Jutta Reinke: “Kino in Bremen. Contributions to a Bremen cinema history ”, 2nd edition 1995, p. 12
- ↑ Dorothea Breitenfeld and Jutta Reinke: “Kino in Bremen. Contributions to a Bremen cinema history ”, 2nd edition 1995, p. 14ff.
- ↑ Dorothea Breitenfeld and Jutta Reinke: “Kino in Bremen. Contributions to a Bremen cinema history ”, 2nd edition 1995, p. 19
- ^ Dorothea Breitenfeld and Jutta Reinke: Kino in Bremen. Contributions to a Bremen cinema history , 2nd edition 1995, p. 31
- ↑ a b TW: The Next Generation , in: taz bremen from February 7, 1995
- ↑ For the Improtheater Bremen see also the homepage at www.improtheater-bremen.de
- ↑ a b Annica Müllenberg: "Take a seat and film off", in: Bremer Anzeiger from October 2, 2011
- ↑ Annica Müllenberg: "Take a seat and film off", in: Bremer Anzeiger of October 2, 2011 and Bastienne Ehl: "In City 46 the sparks fly", in: Weser Kurier - District Courier of August 15, 2011
- ↑ see “Extra - Kino Check”, in: Bremer from November 1993 for the number of seats before the renovation
- ↑ a b see Christian Emigholz: "Showing good films is not enough", in: Weser Kurier of August 21, 1999
- ↑ Hanne Zech: "Lemmings on the stairs of Lisbon", in: Weser Kurier - special page on 10 years of the Neues Museum Weserburg, from September 1, 2001
- ↑ On the work of the silent film companion, see Wilfried Hippen: “Der den Stummfilmvertont”, in: taz from January 20, 2004
- ↑ a b see the opening magazine, special supplement by Weser Kurier, October 2011
- ↑ a b See Wilfried Hippen: "Girl meets Girl", in: taz bremen of November 2, 2000, p. 27
- ↑ For the Queer Film Festival see also the homepage at www.queerfilm.de
- ↑ kmi: “Europe's answer to Hollywood”, in: Bremer Anzeiger from January 19, 2005
- ↑ Alexandra Albrecht: "Between Art and Commerce", in: Weser Kurier from January 16, 2005
Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 48.5 " N , 8 ° 48 ′ 36.5" E
