Arsenal Filminstitut

Arsenal Filminstitut

Address:
Gerichtstraße 53
13347 Berlin, Germany

Website
Social Media: @arsenalberlin, arsenal.kino

About the archive

.Arsenal’s film archive comprises approximately 10.000 titles and reflects the institute’s long‑standing commitment to avant‑garde, political, and independent cinema. Closely connected to the Berlinale sections Forum and Forum Expanded, which Arsenal organizes, the archive has been shaped by decades of curatorial practice that foregrounds experimental forms, transnational perspectives, and politically engaged filmmaking. Its holdings preserve both analogue and digital works from diverse international contexts, tracing networks of solidarity, artistic exchange, and aesthetic innovation across continents and generations.
The collection contains 5.800 analogue film copies and 4.500 digital film copies, including DCPs and other digital formats. These materials span the entire history of cinema, with a particular emphasis on works produced since the 1960s, when the institution was founded. Complementing the film holdings is a comprehensive paper archive containing 30.000 newspaper clippings, 24.800 film posters, 60.000 film stills, 8.500 viewing tapes, and 1.900 audio recordings of film discussions with directors and guests dating from 1974 to the present.

Focus & Research

Arsenal is rooted in curatorial practice and encompasses films of all lengths and genres — documentary, fiction, experimental, essayistic, and politically engaged cinema from around the world. The collection reflects transnational networks, friendships, alliances, and communities of solidarity. What unites these works is the individual and collective search for the other, historical and contemporary perspectives of critique and innovation — aesthetic, cultural, social, political. Arsenal’s research framework is grounded in the concept of the “Living Archive” introduced in 2010, which describes an archival practice based on the fundamental assumption that an archive can only have meaning in relation to the present and with a view to the future.
This approach understands the archive as an active, generative space whose meaning emerges through its relationship to the present and its orientation toward the future. Preservation, research, and restoration are not isolated technical tasks but part of a participatory artistic and curatorial practice.

Residency details

Available period for archive visits:
August 2026 to November 2026 / December 2026 to May 2027 possible, if necessary. (September should be covered to allow participation in the Archival Assembly Festival)

Duration on location: 4 to 8 weeks

What the archive offers:

Access to archival materials, databases and catalogues, digital resources, technical or research support; curatorial guidance and creative input; and introductions to the collection and its contexts.

Workspace:

to be agreed

Accessibility

• Stairs and elevators
• Quiet and low‑sensory spaces suitable for neurodiverse researchers