Cinema Project: Screaming City - West Berlin 1980s
Beyond Borders Program VIII: Germany
April 20 & 21, 6:45pm
Clinton Street Theatre
2522 SE Clinton St., Portland, Oregon 97202, USA
Suggested donation of $7 ($3 for members).

For this two-night event, Cinema Project welcomes curator Stefanie Schulte Strathaus of Berlin’s Arsenal. Stefanie has toured extensively with many of these films and will be on hand to present the work each night.

On Tuesday April 20th is a selection of shorts including a-b-city by Brigitte Bühler and Dieter Hormel that features a psychedelic West Berlin pumped with the music of Pere Ubu and Einstürzende Neubauten, and Cynthia Beatt's Cycling the Frame, with a young Tilda Swinton who mumbles, "This is completely mad, this place," while cycling along the Wall.

On Wednesday April 21st is the feature length Flug durch die Nacht, by Ilona Baltrusch, which shows a highly staged West Berlin embedded in the apocalyptic atmosphere typical of the 1980s.  

In the decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall, a vast number of films were produced in and about West Berlin, dealing with the ambivalent realities of the enclosed city. No longer was it about devoting oneself to the World Revolution, but rather about implementing alternative life-styles, which gave rise to social resistance, strident underground cultures, and sexual border-crossing. For many young filmmakers, the super-8 medium facilitated the production of low cost and truly independent films. The technical limitations tended to embody a strong means of spontaneity and purposeful dilettantism, while being easily distributed and shown in underground cinemas, clubs, and cafes. Curator Stefanie Schulte-Strathaus of Berlin’s Arsenal brings with her to Portland a selection of experimental films from this dynamic and complex period of our recent past.

Curator-in-Attendance

Tuesday April 20th
- Normalzustand (Yana Yo, 1981, S8mm to video, color, sound, 3 min.)
- Musterhaft–das Ende, ein Intermezzo (Michael Brynntrup, 1985, S8mm to video, color, sound, 8 min.)
- Darum oder was erwartest Du? (Jürgen Baldiga , 1981, S8mm  to video, color, silent, 7 min.)
- Persona Non Grata (Christoph Doering, 1981, S8mm to video, color, sound, 16 min.)
- a-b-city (Brigitte Bühler & Dieter Hormel, 1985, S8mm  to video, color, sound, 8 min.)
- Cycling the Frame (Cynthia Beatt, 1988, 16mm, color, sound, 28 min.)
- Naturkatastrophenkonzert (Die Tödliche Doris, 1983, S8mm to video, color, sound, 3 min.)

Wednesday April 21st
- Flug durch die Nacht (Ilona Baltrusch, 1980, video, color, sound, 90 min.)

One Minute Volume 4
the fourth in the series of artists' moving image curated by Kerry Baldry

will preview on Thursday 6th May at Moors Bar, Crouch End, 57 Park Road, Crouch End, London, N8 8SY on Thursday 6th May from 6.30 – 8.30pm.
It will also continuously screen Saturday and Sunday (8th and 9th) 11am - 9pm as part of the Crouch End Open studios weekend.

One Minute Volume 4, a programme of artists' moving image, features over 30 artists and includes an eclectic range of techniques, media, processes including stop frame, video, film, Super8 and 16mm, split screen, superimposition, animation, digital and live action. All with one thing in common - the restriction of working within the time limit of 1 minute.

Artists included:
Tony Hill, Bob Levene, Katherine Meynell, Steven Ball, Simon Payne, David Kefford, Laure Prouvost, Eva Rudlinger, Liam Wells, Chris Meigh Andrews, Tina Keane, Philip Sanderson, Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore, Alex Pearl, Gordon Dawson, Daniela Butsch, Jonathan Moss, Cate Elwes, Martin Pickles, Riccardo Iacono, Louisa Minkin, Michael Cousin, Kate Jessop, Anahita Razmi, Stuart Pound, Kerry Baldry, Elizabeth Hobbs, James Snazzell, Tansy Spinks, Zhel Vukicevic, Fil Ieropoulos, Niki Rolls, Michael Szpakowski, Marty St. James, Richard Tuohy, Nick Herbert, Virginia Hilyard, Clarie Morales and others