WELT SPIEGEL KINO - the title already suggests the content: the mutual reflection of the reality of the world and the world of the cinema. Documentary found footage from the early days of cinematography offer a starting point, in which the cinema is the object of self-reflection: film recordings showing cinemas in their urban environments—including life on the streets, passersby, curious onlookers, and their reactions to the camera. The second starting point comprises the films included in these cinemas’ programs, and the titles of these films, which we see on the cinemas’ film posters. WELT SPIEGEL KINO - allows the reality of the street in front of the cinemas and the world of the cinema to enter into a cinematic dialogue. Individual characters, who are representative of an idealized social position, are pulled from the flow of those passing by. These characters are shown in fictive portraits compiled from archive material originating from the same places and times. These portraits provide a counterpart for individual protagonists from the films—which are playing at the respective cinemas—in the form of a film quotation.

FILM IST. - is a reflextive statement. Film exist, without any definition. Film – understood as a medium for the production of moving images by light – is an optical phenomenon and not an invention by human beeings. The first cinema was a cave in which beams of light, reflected from the outside world, entering through a small hole, produced an image of the outside world, upside down, and reversed, just after the earth’s crust had begun to set. A camera obscura for elemental forces. FILM IST. - approaches the principles which lie at the foundation of the media. While the first six sections were concerned with the scientific laboratory as the birth place of the medium, the six subsequent sections are dedicated to the fairground and the variety theatre as the second cradle of cinematography. November 14th, 21.30h Lisbon, Cinemateca Portuguesa