frankfurt forms: double feature cmelka/vanisian & the paderborn collection

First, three films about bodies and spaces that surround them: Retreats, private spaces, openness and loneliness, togetherness. Kerstin Cmelka studied at the Städelschule from 1999 to 2005 and during this time she made a series of 16mm films. The two short films Et In Arcadia Ego and Mit Mir play with carefully designed double and multiple exposures and work with the viewer's own body as well as the ghostly power that has been inherent in cinema since its beginnings. Garegin Vanisian lives and works in Berlin and Frankfurt and has made a number of analogue short films. His most recent film, Das Herz durch Wüsteneyen rennt - working title, weaves the pain and grief of its protagonist into a web of textures, tattoos, literature and music. At the centre of the film, shot and edited on 16mm, is a double loss: how to deal with the emptiness created by the departure of a loved one? And how to deal with the disappearance of the leading actress, who seemingly refuses to play the role given to her?

Arch-Catholic city and experimental films by women that deal with sexuality in explicit images - how does that go together? When I was appointed to the University of Paderborn in 2001, I wanted to teach film as film. No money was granted for film rentals, but a one-time amount for teaching materials. This resulted in the collection of experimental films by women, to which the solidarity of many filmmaker friends contributed decisively. Some prints were given to me as gifts, most of them newly fabricated in copying works that no longer exist. In the film classes at the Städel, the Hochschule der Künste Bremen and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, the few female filmmakers often went their own and different ways than their fellow students. From this environment, the archive brings together female interventions that focus on female sexuality, stage bodies, and explore power relations in spaces of vision and action. Many of the contributing filmmakers come from Frankfurt: Noll Brinckmann, Anja Czioska, Eva Heldmann, Lilo Mangelsdorff, Laura Padgett, Pola Reuth. Their films form the focus of the programme, which is about a perceptual-aesthetic relationship to the material environment and an examination of the performativity of gender.

(Annette Brauerhoch)