Short Film Loop: ‘Up in Flames’

Two films are playing with fire: Join us for a loop of blazing images from the safety of the Kinemathek’s Studiokino.

Feuerprobe mit Film (‘Fire Test with Film’)
SE 1923, 8 min, OV (silent)

Nitrate film is risky film – its high flammability as real as it is legendary. In 1923, a controlled fire test involving nitrate film was carried out near the Stockholm gasworks, and captured on film itself. According to the intertitles, a reinforced concrete chamber with 10-cm-thick walls was built for the experiment. The aim was to determine the best type of construction for film storage facilities and archives. Half a million meters of nitrate film were burned during the tests.

Naturkatastrophenkonzert (‘Natural Disaster Concert’)
GDR 1984, director: Die Tödliche Doris, 3 min, OV (without dialogue)

In 1983, the West German TV channel WDR invited the band ‘Die Tödliche Doris’ to give a concert in front of the graffiti-covered Western side of the Berlin Wall. Instead, the band’s founder Wolfgang Müller led the film crew to a spot where a large mound of sand obscured the view of the Wall behind it. 
There followed a triple solo featuring various (torture) instruments with vocals performed by Käthe Kruse, a violin tormented by Wolfgang Müller and an accordion weaponized with thumbtacks and played by Nikolaus Utermöhlen – each performing into a burning microphone. The event concluded in a silent trio: The sound cable melted, the audio transmission cut out but the video tape continued to run – the culmination of a spectacular media disaster.

Until 18:00