Regarding Terror: The RAF Exhibition
Accompanying program of films
April 19 – May 17, 2005
Venue: Kino Arsenal, Potsdamer Straße 2, 10785 Berlin
We wish to draw your attention to the film program being staged in Berlin from April 19 onward by the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in cooperation with the Kino Arsenal.
Five film and discussion evenings have been scheduled to complement the subject-matter and thematic organization of the RAF exhibit running parallel in the KW. Each of the selected films illustrates a different aspect of the thematic material and opens up a forum for further discussion. The screenings will be based on the following basic scheme: the pairing of two films which highlight subject-matter from different perspectives or else embed a theme in a broader context. Some three guests will participate in the subsequent moderated discussion, which will also be open to the audience. The film evenings will focus both on the film medium as well as on the symbols and ideas for which the films were a vehicle.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005, 6 pm
Ashes and Diamonds (Poland 1958, dir. Andrzej Wajda), 95 min.
Baader (D 2001, dir. Christopher Roth), 109 min.
Guests: Klaus Stern, Kassel; Johannes Ullmaier, Frankfurt/Main
Moderator: Christian Schneider, Frankfurt/Main
The cultural and above all the cinematic environment of the late 1950s and ’60s played an important role in the (self-)presentation of the RAF and how the movement was viewed by the general public. Either side was influenced by iconographic patterns, such as that of the Angry Young Man and Revolutionary, which had been established particularly by the films of the earlier period. The prime examples are the rebellious poses of James Dean or Jean Paul Belmondo, and films like Bonnie & Clyde, Once Upon a Time in the West, or Andrzej Wajda’s early work Ashes and Diamonds. However, the RAF also generated the production of visual worlds which primarily take effect over popular culture (for instance, the “Prada-Meinhof” advertisements, novels like Leander Scholz’ Rosenfest, or films like Christopher Roth’s Baader). These works intentionally deploy the shock effect of terrorism as a device to exercise aesthetic attraction or else in order to present as a modern myth the RAF, a movement at once immediate and remote in terms of contemporary history. The films reflect upon the firm establishment of visual worlds in the cultural recollection of a society, and by doing so intensify certain interpretative patterns – and even schemes of symbolism – generally associated with terrorism. The question is to what extent such films succeed in their aims, and whether their intentions are legitimate in the first place. The opening film evening juxtaposes the two visual worlds – the one which iconographically influenced the members of the RAF, and the one generated in the process of analyzing the RAF – and investigates aspects of continuity, modes of action, and practices of aesthetic processing.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005, 6 pm
Stammheim (D 1985, dir. Reinhard Hauff), 107 min.
The Third Generation (D 1979, dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder), 110 min.
Guests: Gerhart Baum, Berlin; Gertrud Koch, Berlin; Hellmut Brunn, Frankfurt
Moderator: Stefan Reinecke, Berlin
Both screenings deal with the consequences of escalating violence. Playing against the backdrop of the public debate surrounding the re-integration and pardon of former terrorists in 1980s Germany, Stammheim is an intimate courtroom drama which investigates the motivation of the members of the RAF and the reasons for the increasingly embittered confrontation between the RAF and the state. In The Third Generation, a grotesque play on the RAF escalation strategy aimed at unmasking the fascist underbelly of the state, the boundaries separating the terrorists from corporate business and the state are fluid. As well as the obvious questions about preventive tactics and legislation, this film invites renewed scrutiny of the public and official images of the RAF and terrorism in the 1970s.
Tuesday, May 3, 2005, 6 pm
Operation Thunderbolt (IL 1977, dir. Menahem Golan), 124 min.
dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (B/F 1997, dir. Johan Grimonprez), 68 min.
Guests: Annette Vowinckel, Berlin; Johan Grimonprez, Brussels (to be confirmed); Hanno Balz, Bremen
Moderator: Thibaut de Ryuter, Berlin
Among the defining 1970s media images of violence were those of hijacked aircraft, whose predominance was akin to that of contemporary pictures of suicide attacks. To some degree, the imaginary realm of the hijack has acquired iconic status. Filmmakers and artists alike have been inspired by the drama or the powerful images evoked by such scenarios. The two films screened exemplify either approach, and discuss the cultural/historical significance of the hijack from dissimilar perspectives: a thriller based on the events in Entebbe in 1976, and an artistic-associative montage that denounces the media spectacle and attempts to reveal how the images influence our emotions, our knowledge, and our recollection of events.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005, 6 pm
Schleyer. A German Story (D 2002, dir. Lutz Hachmeister), 90 min.
One Day in September (USA 2000, dir. Kevin Macdonald), 95 min.
Guests: Gerd Koenen, Frankfurt; Michaela Melián, Munich
The continuity between the Nazi regime and the Federal Republic which succeeded it was an argument repeatedly used by the RAF in order to justify its actions. The industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer’s role in the Third Reich was put forward as a reason for his abduction. This attitude was seemingly contradicted by assaults planned or perpetrated against Jews or Jewish institutions which began as far back as 1968, when the “hash rebels” targeted a synagogue. The RAF’s reaction to the assassinations at the 1972 Munich Olympics or the 1976 Entebbe hijacking exemplified an increasingly extreme attitude to issues of “anti-Zionism” and “anti-fascism” and the “Palestine problem.” The films invite a discussion of the often still unclear connections between the RAF, the post-war generation of parents, the process of facing up to recent German history, and “anti-Zionism.”
Tuesday, May 17, 2005, 6 pm
The State I Am In (dir. 2000, R Christian Petzold), 115 min.
(to be confirmed): Wilde Tiere – Rote Knastwoche (D 1969/70, dir. Katrin Seybold, Gerd Conradt)
Guests: Harun Farocki, Berlin; Dorothea Hauser, Paris; Leander Scholz, Bonn
Moderator: to be confirmed
The two films trace a line from the infancy of West German left-wing terrorism in the late 1970s up to the period in which it ended, and at the same time address from different perspectives the roles and problems of young people. Efforts to improve the situation of adolescents were among the first political activities of Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader. Set in the present day, The State I Am In shows the life of a family which went underground during the era of German terrorism. The focus is trained on the daughter and her yearning for a normal life, thus shifting the perspective on the “victims” of the events of the period.
Participants
Hanno Balz, political scientist, Bremen
Gerhart Baum, former Federal Minister of the Interior, Berlin
Hellmut Brunn, lawyer and author, Frankfurt
Marcus Coelen, literary scholar, Romanisches Seminar,
Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich
Thibaut de Ruyter, critic, Berlin
Harun Farocki, filmmaker, Berlin
Dorothea Hauser, writer, Paris
Gertrud Koch, Seminar für Filmwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin
Gerd Koenen, writer, Frankfurt
Michaela Melián, artist, Munich
Stefan Reinecke, journalist and writer, Berlin
Christian Schneider, writer, Chair of Psychoanalysis at the Sigmund Freund Institute, Frankfurt
Leander Scholz, writer and lecturer, Bonn
Klaus Stern, filmmaker, Kassel
Johannes Ullmaier, reader at Suhrkamp Verlag, lecturer at Chair of German Studies, Universität Mainz
Annette Vowinckel, cultural scientist, Kulturwissenschaftliches Seminar der HUB
Organized by: Kino Arsenal, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and Kulturwissenschaftliches Seminar der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
With the kind support of Delizie d’Italia
Concept:
Jörn Ahrens, Kulturwissenschaftliches Seminar Berlin, HUB
Ellen Blumenstein, KW Berlin
Organization:
Friederike Klapp, Katharina Fichtner, KW Berlin
Venue:
Kino Arsenal, Potsdamer Straße 2, 10785 Berlin
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Further information:
Markus Müller I Maike Cruse
t: ++49 30 24 34 59 41 / 42
press@kw-berlin.de