VW (VeneKlasen/Werner) is pleased to announce the opening of VW Cinema with a series of films by Harun Farocki. Future events at VW Cinema include films of Alexander Kluge and programs organized by Peter Doig, Saâdane Afif and others. To receive updates about future events at VW Cinema please email cinema@vwberlin.com with "Subscribe" or visit vwberlin.com/vw-cinema.

For the inauguration of VW Cinema, Harun Farocki organized a series of his films to be screened on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings over four weeks. The series begins this Tuesday at 18.30 with three films: Inextinguishable Fire (1969); Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet at Work on Franz Kafka's "Amerika" (1983); and Georg K. Glaser - Schriftseller und Schmied (1988). Farocki's feature-length film As You See (1986) will be screened Wednesday evening and additional films will be screened in the coming weeks.

Harun Farocki was born 1944 in Novy Jicin (Neutitschein), in then German-annexed Czechoslovakia. He has produced over 100 films for cinema and television. Farocki is the author, with Kaja Silverman, of the book "Speaking about Godard" as well as being the editor of the journal Filmkritik. His works have featured prominently in numerous exhibitions including MACBA in Barcelona, Argos Festival in Brussels, Cinematheque Francaise in Paris and documenta 12 in Kassel.

TUESDAY 29 March 18:30
Inextinguishable Fire (1969), 16mm, 25 minutes
"When we show you pictures of napalm victims, you'll shut your eyes. You'll close your eyes to the pictures. Then you'll close them to the memory. And then you'll close your eyes to the facts." So begins this remarkably powerful and austere work of agitprop cinema, filmed in the labs and offices of a napalm-producing corporation. Farocki's thesis unfolds thus: "(1) A major corporation is like a construction set. It can be used to put together the whole world. (2) Because of the growing division of labor, many people no longer recognize the role they play in producing mass destruction. (3) That which is manufactured in the end is the product of the workers, students, and engineers."

Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet at Work on Franz Kafka's "Amerika" (1983)
16mm, 25 minutes
At once a self-portrait and an homage to Jean-Marie Straub, Farocki's role model and mentor, this film memorably documents the unorthodox directorial methods of Straub and Huillet. Under Straub's direction, Farocki rehearses to the point of exhaustion his role as Delamarche in Straub's Klassenverhältnisse, capturing the director's fascinatingly theatrical obsession with detail.

Georg K. Glaser - Schriftsteller und Schmied (1988), 16mm, 45 minutes
George K. Glaser spends the mornings at his desk and from midday on in his workshop in the Marais, where he produces bowls, vases, jugs, lamps and other metal work in techniques lost to contemporary artisans. His combination of craftsmanship and writing embodies the true meaning of the French word for craftsman, artisan - where the syllable 'art' is not yet divorced from work. Farocki's film lovingly tells Glaser's remarkable story, following his path to writer and artist.

WEDNESDAY 30 March 18:30
As You See (1986), 16mm, 72 minutes
"My film As You See is an action-filled feature film. It reflects upon girls in porn magazines to whom names are ascribed and about the nameless dead in mass graves, upon machines that are so ugly that coverings have to be used to protect the workers' eyes, upon engines that are too beautiful to be hidden under the hoods of cars, upon labor techniques that either cling to the notion of the hand and the brain working together or want to do away with it. My film As You See is an essay film. The contemporary opinion industry is like a huge mouth, or maybe a paper shredder. I compose a new text out of these scraps and thus stage a paper-chase."

All films are presented in English or with English subtitles. Screenings begin at 18.30. For more details about the series please visit vwberlin.com/vw-cinema.