Arsenal: Film and Statement in the Cinema

Listening Session + Panel

In 1974, during a Forum screening, a statement was read out regarding the imprisonment of the director Pantelis Voulgaris in Greece; at another screening, a further statement was issued on the situation of South American filmmakers after the coup in Chile. In 1989, before Amor América, a text on film censorship in Berlin schools was read aloud. Statements have also been written and delivered in more recent times. They met with approval or rejection; some sought to counteract the divisions within society that also run through cinema auditoriums.

What does it mean when texts are placed alongside films in the cinema? Which public is addressed in this process, and what happens between the films, the spoken contributions, and the audience? Does this change the dispositif of cinema, or does it rather enliven it?

Drawing on audio recordings, these questions are discussed by, among others, Gertrud Koch (film scholar) and Ulrich Ziemons (Forum Expanded).

Sunday, January 11
Kuppelhalle
7 pm
Admission free