Curated by Sarnt Utamachote, Popo Fan and Ragil Huda
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
From September 2020 on bi’bak will embark on a cinema experiment at Haus der Statistik.
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA explores cinema as a space for social discourse, a place for exchange and solidarity. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA brings together diverse social communities, links geographically distant and nearby places, the past, present and future, and decentres an eurocentric view through transnational, (post-) migrant and postcolonial perspectives. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA is a transtopia, a place where “cross-border ties and connections converge, are reinterpreted and condense into everyday contexts” (Erol Yıldız). As part of the pioneering urban policy Initiative Haus der Statistik, the cinema experiment bridges the gap between everyday urban practices and film to create an alternative art form that connects different social perspectives.
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA is funded by Haupstadtkulturfonds, Conrad Stiftung and the Programm NEUSTART KULTUR
bi'bakino
bi'bakino is a curated film program that focuses on transnational narratives, migration and mobility discourses in film and seeks to stimulate differentiated discussions and changes of perspective. The program highlights films from outside Europe that have often not been shown in Berlin before, as well as archive excavations and rediscoveries. Following the film screenings, moderated discussions take place with filmmakers and experts.
Past event series can be found in the archive.
Curated by Sarnt Utamachote, Popo Fan and Ragil Huda
Curated by Eirini Fountedaki, Cornelia Lund & Holger Lund (fluctuating images), Philip Rizk and Shohreh Shakoory
Curated by Özge Calafato
Fields of action in the environmental crisis
Curated by Sarnt Utamachote, Malve Lippmann, Rosalia Namsai Engchuan and Pia Chakraverti-Würthwein & Eirini Fountedaki
Curated by Necati Sönmez
Curated by Sebahattin Şen
Berlinale Forum Special Programme
Curated by Can Sungu, Karina Griffith, Enoka Ayemba, Jacqueline Nsiah and Biene Pilavci
Curated by LaborBerlin e.V.
LaborBerlin´s vitality comes from the shared interest in sustaining a collective space built around practices involving photo-chemical film. This space is constantly in flux thanks to the people who pass through it, their various perspectives, and origins. Out of Focus LaborBerlin is a film series that approaches the laboratory as a transitory place. On five evenings, the limits of the collective’s visible structure will be explored. Join us for conversations with and works by current and former members exploring themes and perspectives beyond actual analogue film-making itself.
Funded by Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa
LaborBerlin e.V. is a self-organized space for working with film. The collective is open to anyone interested in an experimental approach to analogue film practice. LaborBerlin is a platform for the exchange of ideas and experiences of film making, and provides all the tools necessary to its members.
Iranian Cinema Before 1979
Curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht
Cinema beyond the Screen
Symposium, Screenings, Talks
OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Bernd Lützeler
Bernd Lützeler lives and works as an artist and filmmaker between Berlin and Mumbai. With his films, installations and expanded cinema works he explores techniques of moving image production and presentation in relation to film aesthetics and perception. Another major influence on his work is popular Indian culture, often juxtaposed against the dystopian backdrop of a contemporary urban India. Bernd's works have been shown at venues and festivals worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Berlin International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Ann Arbor Film Festival and Views from the Avant-Garde to name just a few.
OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Philip Widmann and Siska
Independence Day: A work in progress
Siska, 2011/2012, 7 min. Super8
with live audio by Christian Blumberg
Latent Border(s) - (Extract)
Siska, 2019, 5 min, 16mm
In the Ruins of Baalbeck Studios
Siska, 2017, 47 min, 16mm & Super8 transferred to HD
Despite carrying a city name in its title, LaborBerlin has always invoked other places. Places of origin and possibility, of partnership and ongoing collaboration. For many, Berlin is but one of a multiplicity of places that defines their everyday lives, and its importance in relation to cities from A to Z is ever changing. In Berlin and its laboratory, the factual presence of these other places remains at times unseen or unacknowledged, unless they become objects of films or direct artistic exchanges. Philip Widmann has invited artist and filmmaker Siska for a cine-conversation on the universal periphery that these place relations constitute. Siska was a member of LaborBerlin for a brief time around 2010, when he was still commuting between his native Beirut and Berlin. He continues to work on Super 8 and 16mm, moving between amateurism, cinema screens and exhibition spaces, exploring the visual and spatial histories of Beirut and Berlin, among others.
Philip Widmann makes films, texts, and film programmes at the intersection of experimental documentary cinema, science, and visual art. His film and video work has been shown in various film festivals and art spaces, including Berlinale, IFF Rotterdam, New York FF, Yamagata International Documentary FF, FID Marseille, Videonale Bonn, Wexner Center for the Arts, and others. He has also selected film programmes for Arkipel Jakarta, Image Forum Tokyo, Kassel Dokfest and others. Philip has been a member of LaborBerlin since 2009.
Siska’s practice is often centered on archiveology examining sociopolitical narratives in relation to personal and collective pasts. His use of film language and cinematographic codes, as strategic mediations to activate archival material, allows him to experiment with new forms of storytelling and his own biography. Siska's work has been internationally exhibited, such as at Martin Gropius Bau, Paris 104, Beirut Exhibition Center, Mosaic Rooms London.
OV with English subs
Film screening with a performance by Ilker Abay and François Régis, moderated by Nora Molitor
Ich sehe was, was du nicht siehst und das ist…
Der Maler im Wedding (Hans-Hendrik Grimmling)
Laurence Favre, Germany 2020, 5 Min., Super 8, OV
Portrait of Pauli, tattooing session
Ludovic DeOliveira, Germany 2020, 3 Min., Super 8, OV
Around LoBe (Dave von der Heyden)
Bea McDonald, Germany 2020, 3 Min., Super 8, OV
Werkstätten (KFZ-Gutachterbüro Ali Mroué)
Nora Molitor, Germany 2020, 3 Min., Super 8, OV
Der Kiezkönig (Frankie)
Misha Bours, Germany 2020, 3 Min., Super 8, OV
Sunkiez
Kornél Szilágyi alias Igor Buharov, Germany 2020, 3 Min. Super 8
In August 2020, a group of more or less eccentric people and places came together under the motto "Ich sehe was, was du nicht siehst und das ist…" (I spy with my little eye...). Six filmmakers - three of them LaborBerlin members - set out to explore the Badstraßenkiez in Wedding. Equipped with a Super 8 camera and a sound recorder, they portrayed people who live and work in the neighborhood. In the third edition of Out of Focus LaborBerlin, we will show these cinematic portraits as works-in-progress accompanied by a live soundtrack and performance. We invite you to reflect on the relationship between laboratory and film, collective and individual, protagonists and filmmakers in a city that has more than one center.
eccentric*
Ilker Abay is a filmmaker, actor and the artistic project manager of AUCH - Nachbarschaft ist Kunst. Nora Molitor is a cultural studies scholar, both a workshop organizer and workshop participant, and member of LaborBerlin e.V., Francois Régis is a composer and musician. As a child his only excuse not to play football with his friends was this: to play the piano.
