All Beginnings are Beautiful!

On 4 April 2016, we invited guests to the first analogue screening in the Blauer Salon: City Lights on 35mm. We had no idea what this evening would trigger. The journey there smelled of orange cleaner, patience and improvisation: the over fifty-year-old Bauer B-14 projector was polished inch by inch, rewired and brought to life without instructions. When it finally worked, our joy was overwhelming. For this tenth anniversary, we are now revisiting the magic inherent in those early days in our programme:

With Aller Anfang ist schön! (All Beginnings are Beautiful!), we turn our attention to directorial debuts. More than just a first film, a debut is a new beginning, in which a new voice makes itself heard for the first time and a unique view of the world takes shape on screen. It emerges from the tension between expectation and experimentation, risk and resonance. It can be celebrated as the emergence of a great talent or only reveal its full significance in retrospect. It can be the first step of a long filmography or remain a singular explosion of creative energy. And it always has the potential to rewrite film history. Cinema is at its most vibrant in the raw beauty of these uncut gems: sometimes bold, sometimes tentative, and with the incomparable power of cinema to open our eyes to something new.