Visionary Archive

"Visionary Archive" was a collaborative translocal experiment: Phases and facets of African cinema were researched in five localities. For this project, five archives with very different backgrounds teamed up to develop new presentation forms for their film collections. The relationship between phenomena related to film history in Cairo, Khartoum, Johannesburg, Bissau and Berlin was formulated and examined. The term "African cinema" served as an open bracket in which historical echoes came into their own, as did open questions.

In addition to the Berlin-based organisation Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, the project’s partners included the Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre in Cairo, the independent cinema The Bioscope in Johannesburg, the filmmaker Gadalla Gubara’s archive in Khartoum, and Geba Filmes (Bissau).

“Visionary Archive“ was divided into five thematic, interconnected projects, all of which investigated what contemporary, transcultural, curatorial and artistic work with archives and archival research could look like. 
The project “Revisiting Memory”, coordinated by the Cimatheque in Cairo, reflected on how films and archives can express social upheavals and the most recent changes in society. The project “B-Schemes“ in Johannesburg aimed to critically examine and present a subject which has received almost no attention to date, namely “B-scheme” films in South Africa, a state-funded Apartheid-era programme supporting “black films for black viewers”. “Studio Gad” was dedicated to the private archive of the filmmaker Gadalla Gubara, one of the pioneers of African film, who died in 2008. Since Gubara’s death, his daughter Sara Gubara, who is also a filmmaker, has taken over responsibility for the archive. The plan was to view and evaluate the archive. The cluster “From Boé to Berlin – A mobile lab on the film history of Guinea-Bissau” was dedicated to the recently re-opened and now partly digitized archival holdings of the national film institute of Guinea-Bissau (INCA).



In May 2015 the project ended with a comprehensive closing programme in Berlin.



"Visionary Archive" was a project by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin.

Project participants: Hana Al Bayaty (EG), Filipa César (DE), Tamer El Said (EG), Darryl Els (ZA), Yasmin Desouki (EG), Sara Gubara (SD), Marie-Hélène Gutberlet (DE), Tobias Hering (DE), Nadja Korinth (DE), Sana na N’Hada (GW), Stefan Pethke (DE), Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (DE), Katharina von Schroeder (DE)