Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art

Collection und Distribution

arsenal collection
The film collection consists of about 9,000 works and documents our conception of film (history) as a “living archive.” It facilitates a glimpse into the historical impulses of international film history as well as into current directions in film and video art. The task for the future will increasingly become to process the collection, to extend it, and to make it accessible through user-oriented archiving and digitalization.

arsenal distribution
The distribution program contains about 2,000 titles consisting of two components: cinema distribution as well as distribution of experimental film and video art in all areas of art and culture.

- cinema distribution
The distribution arm arose from the desire to make the films shown at the Forum accessible to an international audience beyond the time of the festival. Today, this involves numerous films that cannot find any commercial distribution. They are chiefly shown in the so-called “kommunale Kinos” and art house cinemas. Every year, arsenal distribution releases approximately 15 new productions, primarily in Germany, but also in cinemas in Austria and Switzerland. arsenal distribution represents the complete film works of German and international directors such as Heinz Emigholz, Birgit Hein, Trinh T. Min-ha, Ulrike Ottinger, and Helma Sanders-Brahms. With its special conditions for the “kommunale Kinos” as well as special offerings (organized tours, curated programs), arsenal distribution remains in a living relation of exchange with the festival and cinema world.

- experimental film and video art
One of our areas of concentration is the border between film and the other visual arts. Works of this nature are distributed and represented both in Germany and abroad, presented in the Arsenal Cinema, and published in DVD editions. The idea of networking is a central concern in this. The international collaboration with curators, festivals, institutions, and art schools from the area of film and the visual arts creates the basis to offer artists the necessary platform. The Forum Expanded program, initiated at the Berlin Film Festival in 2006, is an annual highlight in this work. Numerous works presented here are then taken on by arsenal distribution.