Das Kino sind wir

The title THE CINEMA ARE US refers to Beuys' slogan "La Rivoluzione siamo Noi" (We are the revolution). The film illustrates Beuys' idea of an expanded concept of art and work at a Kassel cinema collective, which is exemplary of a nationwide movement. Parallel to the rise of political film in West Germany in the 1970s/early 1980s, a new type of cinema emerged against the resistance of powerful cinema chains and film distributors. Independent distribution structures and screening venues for films critical of the environment and capitalism, queer, experimental or historical films. The first migrant films also found a steadily growing audience eager to discuss them in the newly founded arthouse cinemas. Showing and receiving 'other films differently' was the motto. The aim was to create a counter-public, to intervene in the social debate. About identities beyond Hollywood. In this collage of film clips, archive material and interviews, contemporary witnesses report on the path alternative cinema took, how economic pressure eventually turned arthouse cinemas into normal cinemas, how politically motivated collectivists became or had to become almost normal operators. What fell by the wayside, what was achieved? And what happens next?
Using the example of the Filmladen Kassel and the Kassel Documentary Film Festival, Livia Theuer tells the story of cinema as social sculpture, primarily from a feminist perspective. The cinema team and (Filmladen) influential filmmakers such as Ulrike Ottinger, Gertrud Pinkus, Monika Treut, Andres Veiel and others pose questions about the significance and (post-pandemic) future of committed cinema culture.