Das Kino Projekt

Forum Expanded Anniversary 2025

Das Kino Projekt is a traveling movie theater screening an archive of amateur analog film, on Super 8 and 16mm, side by side with video works from international visual artists and filmmakers. It is an on-site installation investing in new and temporary locations as it travels from one city to another. Following in-depth research of the respective city’s cinema history, the Kino takes on the name of a former movie theatre that was closed down, demolished, or transformed. As part of Forum Expanded, the Kino Projekt shows a selection of its neon signs, which were produced for each city the cinema has visited in the past ten years. The project started in Beirut and is a homage to vanished cinema culture worldwide. In 2011 the Kino Projekt traveled to Aleppo and, due to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, could not be realized on site.

We bid farewell to Kino Arsenal on Potsdamer Platz with this repeat presentation of Franziska Pierwoss and Siska’s cinema project, which was part of the Forum Expanded group show in 2022.

by Franziska Pierwoss (Director), Siska a.k.a Elie Habib (Director) Germany 2021 English, Arabic

Crew

Directors	Franziska Pierwoss, Siska a.k.a Elie Habib
Producer	Siska a.k.a Elie Habib

Photos

Siska a.k.a Elie Habib

Siska graduated from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts in Beirut with a master’s degree in cinema studies and film directing. He has been living in Berlin since 2009. His practice is often centered on archiveology examining sociopolitical narratives in relation to personal and collective pasts. Siska’s work often questions the ruination of Arab cultural heritage. His use of film language and codes of cinematography as strategic mediations to activate an archive allows him to experiment with new forms of storytelling and his own biography. Siska’s work has been exhibited internationally, including Gropius Bau, Berlin, Centquartre-Paris, Beirut Exhibition Center, Mosaic Rooms, London. Siska’s Bayna Hayakel Studio Baalbeck (2017) was part of Forum Expanded 2018.

Filmography (selection)

2009 Trio a study on horses in the city; 15 min. 2011 E.D.L (Eléctricité Du Liban); 21 min. 2012 Visit to the white house; 3 min. 2013 Golden Rush; 40 min. 2014 A tragic tale of fire, water, and radon; 3 min. 2015 Die Gespenterei 2; 6 min. 2017 Bayna Hayakel Studio Baalbeck; 48 min., Forum Expanded 2018 2019 Latent Border(s); 18 min. 2020 Independance Day A Work in Progress; 7 min. 2021 Das Kino Projekt

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2025