Trust Fall: Films from Berlinale Forum Expanded and Arsenal Archive & Distribution

Trust Fall brings together a group of films made up of recent selections from the Berlinale Forum Expanded as well as works from the vast archive of international experimental cinema of the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art. Taking this year’s BIEFF theme - Handle with care - as a jumping off point, the program of personal films approaches questions of intimacy and vulnerability from multiple perspectives. The selected works negotiate the fragile relationships between the camera and its subjects, the film and its audiences, and how these relationships are informed by and in turn form identities. How to represent another, how to represent oneself? What does it mean to fix a moment in time? Who am I now and who will I be in the future? Seven films – from found footage to formalist dance study, hand-drawn animation and queer Super-8-underground to poetic autoportrait – answer these questions in their own way, create a sensory realm of experience and also give an insight into the Arsenal’s work of preserving and presenting film histories beyond the mainstream canon. The program was curated by Uli Ziemons and Angelika Ramlow and it is presented in partnership with the Berlinale Forum Expanded and Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art.

I CHANGE I AM THE SAME

Alice Anne Parker, Shelby Kennedy | Duration 1 min.

A short, hilarious film of a woman and a man in various stages of undress – in their own and each other's clothing. You in your clothes. Me in my clothes. You in my clothes. Me in your underpants. You in nothing. Me in your clothes. You in my underwear. Me in nothing. You in your underpants. Me in my underwear. You in nothing. Me in nothing. You in your clothes. Me in my clothes.

MYSELF WHEN FOURTEEN

Arthur Cantrill, Corinne Cantrill, Ivor Cantrill | Duration 19 min.

In Myself When Fourteen that was made in collaboration with the Cantrills’ autistic painter son Ivor, the colours begin to dance to Chris Knowles’ music. The filmmaker reminisces about being 14 and describes the rotoscoping process.

WATER MOTOR

Babette Mangolte | Duration 7 min.

Water Motor depicts the eponymous choreography by American dancer Trisha Brown performing this work twice, with one take at regular speed and the other in slow motion.

SUBTOTALS

Mohammadreza Farzad | Duration 15 min.

An essay film made entirely out of 8mm home movies of Iranian people, Subtotals is a meditation on the uncertainties of a life that doesn’t hand you any bills.

SEXPARTY

Angelika Levi | Duration 10 min

A filmic fragment shot during a women’s sex party in the punk and squatter scene of the 80’s, Sexparty works both as testament to the struggle for sexual liberation, as well as testimony of the precariousness of queer culture.

MU/T/T/ER

Esther Kondo Heller | Duration 18 min.

In this video and audio collage, compiled where Heller was living during lockdown, snatches of English and German share the space with remembered or re-discovered Swahili. A poetic reminder that a mother tongue is the one where the individual feels most at home in.

INTRODUCTION TO HUMANITIES

Alice Anne Parker | Duration 3 min.

Alice Anne Parker’s students in the first year Humanities class at the San Francisco Art Institute step before the camera and introduce themselves one by one.

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