Doku.Arts – Second Hand Cinema

Archived audio-visual materials are an important source for documentary films. However, commercialized access to archives, the rapid development of new technologies and the debate surrounding copyrights have made it increasingly difficult for documentary filmmakers to conduct independent artistic work. Consequently, the documentary film genre is undergoing far-reaching and lasting change.
DOKU.ARTS addressed these current developments with a variety of event formats. An extensive exhibition of 30 international filmmakers and artists, most of whom come from Arabic countries along the Mediterranean, presented film compilations and documentaries which use archive materials. The project also hosted a conference of international experts who discussed and compared European practices of archive usage, archive creation and aesthetic strategies of “second-hand cinema”, using the example of the archives at the German TV broadcasters ARD and ZDF. Thanks to its European and North African cooperation partners, the project was able to present a unique arrangement of historic characteristics of international film and television archives.

Artistic director: Andreas Lewin
Artists: Rodney Ascher (USA), Luc Burdon (CA), Mark Cousins (UK), Terence Davis (GB), Zhao Gang (CHN), Palfi György (H), Ben van Lieshout (NL), Maha Maamoun (ET), Ahmed El Maanouni (MA), Betse de Paula und Juliano Salgado (BR), Rania Stephan (ET/F), Gabriele Voss und Christoph Hübner (D) and others