Harun Farocki Retrospective

Educational Program

Großes Kino, Kleines Kino und Arsenal Filmatelier

 

The Arsenal Filmatelier is a group of filmmakers, artists and film educators, who impart film and cinema in school and non-school contexts. The school activities of the Arsenal Filmatelier are backed with the film series “Großes kino, Kleines Kino”, which is open to interested viewers and presents films from the collection at the Arsenal Cinema. As part of the Harun Farocki Retrospective, the Arsenal Filmatelier is hosting screenings and mini-workshops addressed to pupils (“Arsenal Filmatelier”) as well as to children and young people (“Großes Kino, Kleines Kino”).

 

Großes Kino, Kleines Kino*

 

 

September 24, 2017, 4pm

Wie man dreht *

With Anna Faroqhi (filmmaker, Berlin) and Haim Peretz (filmmaker, Berlin), from 10 years and over

 

Film selection

Jean-Marie Straub und Danièle Huillet bei der Arbeit an einem Film nach Franz Kafkas Romanfragment ‚Amerika‘ (Director: Harun Farocki, 1983), 26 min

 

A filmmaker shows other filmmakers at work. Harun Farocki was a student and admirer of the directors he portrayed in his film. Straub and Huillet captured, how one rehearses at the theater – very accurate and without minding the time. The sound of the words is important. There must be no errors, because the camera records everything forever. We are watching a film about filmmaking. Afterwards, there is the opportunity to watch and participate in the production of a short film scene.

 

 

October 15, 2017, 4pm

Transport, Werkzeug, Arbeit, Spiel – Kinderfilme von Harun Farocki*

With Stefanie Schlüter (film educator, Berlin) and Brigitta Wagner (filmmaker and film educator, Berlin), from 5 years and over

 

Film selection:

Transport 1 + 2 (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 6 min

Container 1 + 2 (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 6 min

 

Der Weg des Geldes (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 3 min

Sägen (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 3 min

Hammer (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 3 min

Dock (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 3min

Einschlafgeschichten: Brücken (Director: Harun Farocki, 1977), 3 min

Einschlafgeschichten: Schiffe (Harun Farocki, 1977), 3 min

 

 

In the 1970s and often in collaboration with Hartmut Bitomsky, Harun Farocki realized children’s films. Based on the phenomena in the world, the films strikingly often show means of transportation and transport routes such as trains, ships, roads, bridges, rivers. In the films, the children’s toys and tools are compared with those of the grown-ups: a stone for example, with which also a child can drive a nail into a piece of wood, is juxtaposed to the air hammer on a construction site and to a machine in a factory. By means of accurate observation, Farocki establishes visible links between the objects scattered throughout the world and conveys a vivid picture of complex contexts. Following the film screening, the children are creatively exploring what has been seen.

 

 

 

Arsenal Filmatelier** /***

 

 

September 26, 2017, 11am

Vergleichen und Verbinden**

With Anna Faroqhi and Haim Peretz, from 10th grade onward

 

Film selection:

Zum Vergleich (Director:: Harun Farocki, 2009), 61 min

 

“Farocki shows a brick building site in its colors, movements, sounds. Without comment. Twenty inter-titles in sixty minutes explain several workflows in their temporality. The film reveals that certain production methods require their own amount of time.” (Ute Holl)

 

Following the film Zum Vergleich, we will dedicate ourselves in a workshop to producing a montage of images brought along by the pupils on the topic of brick buildings in Berlin.

 

 

September 29, 2017, 10pm

Bilder vom Krieg**

With Anna Faroqhi and Haim Peretz, from 10th grade onward

 

Film selection:

Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges (Regie: Harun Farocki, 1988), 75 min

 

In his film essay Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges, Harun Farocki contemplates about the violent nature of the technically created image. The film tells of the naked faces of Algerian Berber women, of Allied air images of the concentration camp Auschwitz, of the idea of surveying and ruling behind technical images, which is not always a success for the surveyors and rulers. The film constitutes a thematic and formal basis for Farocki’s cinematic oeuvre, the thoughts are engrossed and carried forward in many subsequent works.

In a hands-on mini-workshop afterwards, a joint self-made montage of war images will be created ad hoc. How do found images fit together? Which possibilities of narration emerge? How much scrap is accumulating in the search for images?

 

 

October 11, 2017, 10pm

Architekt*innen bei der Arbeit**

With Stefanie Schlüter and Brigitta Wagner, from 10th grade onward

 

Film selection:

Sauerbruch Hutton Architekten (Regie: Harun Farocki, 2013), 73 min

 

The documentary Sauerbruch Hutton Architekten gives an insight into the work of the renowned Berlin architectural office of Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton. On the basis of six different projects at different stages of development and implementation, Farocki exemplarily demonstrates the division of labor in an architectural office with around 60 employees: for example, different teams simultaneously working on the preparation of architectural competitions, on the planning of a building project or on the completion of a building. While plans are being worked out here, a model is being built over there or a construction site is being visited. Many decisions have to be made: big decisions such as colors and materials of façade elements, but also decisions in detail, such as the design of window and door handles. The film observes the managing architects as well as their assistants, leaving the viewers without comment to the processes of this work. Afterwards, in a workshop for architectural observation, pupils with cameras are exploring the constructed environment of Potsdamer Platz.

 

 

October 18, 2017, 10pm

Bild Macht Ton Macht Bild**

With Eunice Martins (pianist and composer, Berlin) and Laura Mello (composer, Berlin), from 10th grade onward

 

Film selection:

Gegen-Musik (Regie: Harun Farocki, 2004), 23 min

Musik-Video (Regie: Harun Farocki, 2000), 1 min

Nicht löschbares Feuer (Regie: Harun Farocki, 1969), 23 min

 

In his work, Harun Farocki was in many ways interested in the instrumentalization of images. In today’s countless media formats, images with their added soundtracks are strong tools for expressing power and influencing public opinion in one’s favor. By the example of selected films by Harun Farocki, we want to look at how the film author thinks about the power of the technically created image. Part of his working methods is the accurate viewing of images in different media formats (e.g. surveillance images, television, advertising, computer games) and the critical analysis of the coherences of sound and image production. After the film screening in a mini-workshop, we will jointly create a montage of soundtracks for already existing images. How do the sounds blend in with the images? What kind of shifts in meaning arise? Does the image dominate the sound or vice versa?

 

 

November 24, 2017, 10am

Staunen – Kinderfilme von Harun Farocki ***

With Stefanie Schlüter, from 1st grade onward

 

There is so much to see in the world! Harun Farocki's bedtime stories for children, produced in the 1970s for the television formats Sandmännchen and Sesamstraße, are about marveling eyes. Farocki shows surprising things in the world that children observe every day and are fascinated by. Two sisters, portrayed by Farocki's twin daughters Anna and Lara, play through their visual impressions at bedtime before falling asleep: “I've seen a man who had claws on his feet and could climb up the trunk of a tree with them.” Or: “Have you ever seen a car that grew out of a wall?” And then the director surprises us with the solution of this puzzle. Money circuits become visible in the film Der Weg des Geldes. The film follows a 50 Pfennig coin that wanders from hand to hand. In Transport, it is bricks that are passed from one hand to the next. The film shows how the transport of loads can be eased and also illustrates the transition from physical to mechanical modes of transport.

 

Film selection

Einschlafgeschichten: Staunen (Director: Harun Farocki, 1977), 8 min

Einschlafgeschichten: Verkehrsmittel (Director: Harun Farocki, 1977), 6 min

Der Weg des Geldes (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 3 min

Transport 1 + 2 (Director: Harun Farocki, Hartmut Bitomsky, 1973), 6 min

Einschlafgeschichten: Brücken (Director: Harun Farocki, 1977), 3 min

Einschlafgeschichten: Schiffe (Director: Harun Farocki, 1977), 3 min

Einschlafgeschichten: Bahnen (Director: Harun Farocki, 1977) 3 min

Einschlafgeschichten: Katze (Director: Harun Farocki, 1977), 4 min

 

 

 

 

* No registration required, admission: ticket (€ 7,50; members of Arsenal and n.b.k.: € 5; children: € 3), in German language

** Registration for schools ( from 10th grade onward), limited number of participants: schlueter@arsenal-berlin.de, free admission,in German language

*** Registration for schools (from 1st grade onward), limited number of participants: schlueter@arsenal-berlin.de, free admission, in German language

 

> Kino Arsenal, Potsdamer Straße 2, 10785 Berlin