Curated by Sarnt Utamachote, Popo Fan and Ragil Huda
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
How can a new kind of cinema be collectively created within a transnational society? SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, the cinema-experiment by bi’bak, explores cinema as a space of social discourse, exchange, and solidarity. The curated film series brings together diverse social communities and connects places both near and geographically distant; it links pasts, presents and futures and moves away from a eurocentric gaze towards transnational, (post-)migrant and postcolonial perspectives. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA is a different kind of cinema, one simultaneously committed to local and international communities, that understands cinema as an important public sphere of sociality; it considers film history as crucial to the work of cultural memory and is committed to a diversity of film culture and film art. In Haus der Statistik at Berlin-Alexanderplatz, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA builds a bridge between urban practice and film to create a space that opens access, stimulates discussion, educates, moves, provokes and encourages.
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA is funded by Haupstadtkulturfonds, Conrad Stiftung and the Programm NEUSTART KULTUR
Past event series can be found in the archive.
Curated by Sarnt Utamachote, Popo Fan and Ragil Huda
Berlinale Forum Special Programme
Curated by Can Sungu, Karina Griffith, Jacqueline Nsiah, Biene Pilavci and Enoka Ayemba
Children's cinema from SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
Concept by Malve Lippmann and Dr. Martin Ganguly
Curated by LaborBerlin e.V.
Iranian Cinema Before 1979
Curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht
Curated by Can Sungu and Malve Lippmann
Cinema beyond the Screen
un.thai.tled Film Festival 2021
Curated by Sarnt Utamachote and Rosalia Namsai Engchuan
Feminist Gestures in Film
Curated by Pia Chakraverti-Würthwein & Eirini Fountedaki
Archive screenings with films from Navina Sundaram
Curated by Merle Kröger and Mareike Bernien
Symposium, Screenings, Talks
(Post-)Yugoslavian experiences
Curated by Borjana Gaković and Madeleine Bernstorff
Curated by Darunee Terdtoontaveedej
Perspectives from the South
Curated by Nafiseh Fathollahzadeh and Berke Göl
Curated by Jade Barget and Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee
A program by C/LENS in cooperation with Sinema Transtopia
Curated by Tang Xuedan (Echo)
OV
With SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, launched in 2020 at Haus der Statistik on Alexanderplatz, bi'bak initiated a cinema experiment underpinned by an understanding of cinema as a space of social discourse, exchange and solidarity. At its new location in Berlin-Wedding, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA establishes itself as a transnational space for film culture, art, knowledge and community, creating a bridge between urban space and film as cultural practice. Here a place is created where urbanity and transnationalism coexist, a place that enables access, stimulates discussion, educates, moves, provokes and encourages.
“Transtopia” is the term used by migration researcher Erol Yıldız to describe spaces “where transnational ties and connections converge, are reinterpreted, and condense into everyday contexts.” Following on from this, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA links geographies both near and far, taking into consideration their narratives, pasts, presents and futures. Cinema here becomes a meeting place where people come together not only to witness film, but to experience a space of lively discourse, of living, working and learning together. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA thus stands for a cinema that sees itself as a social place simultaneously committed to local and international communities, one that regards film-historical work as the work of cultural remembrance and that is dedicated to a diversity of film culture and film art.
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA will reopen on January 14th 2023 with the program Restart: TRANSTOPIA. For this collectively curated program we have invited curators, filmmakers and friends who have been involved in our previous programs.
We ask: How, in a transnational society, can a new kind of cinema be collectively shaped? What significance do films, encounters and memories carry? What do they tell us about their historical and contemporary contexts and how do they actively form them? We come together to search for possible answers, inspirations and moments.
Der Bau des neuen SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA und unsere Programme wurden gefördert durch den Hauptstadtkulturfonds, den Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis, die Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, den Bundesverband Soziokultur Zentren 2, NEUSTART Sofortprogramm für Corona-bedingte Investitionen in Kultureinrichtungen, den Fonds Soziokultur im Programm PROFIL:SOZIOKULTUR aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR.
