Restart: TRANSTOPIA

With SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, launched in 2020 at Haus der Statistik on Alexanderplatz, bi'bak initiated a cinema experiment underpinned by an understanding of cinema as a space of social discourse, exchange and solidarity. At its new location in Berlin-Wedding, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA establishes itself as a transnational space for film culture, art, knowledge and community, creating a bridge between urban space and film as cultural practice. Here a place is created where urbanity and transnationalism coexist, a place that enables access, stimulates discussion, educates, moves, provokes and encourages.

“Transtopia” is the term used by migration researcher Erol Yıldız to describe spaces “where transnational ties and connections converge, are reinterpreted, and condense into everyday contexts.” Following on from this, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA links geographies both near and far, taking into consideration their narratives, pasts, presents and futures. Cinema here becomes a meeting place where people come together not only to witness film, but to experience a space of lively discourse, of living, working and learning together. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA thus stands for a cinema that sees itself as a social place simultaneously committed to local and international communities, one that regards film-historical work as the work of cultural remembrance and that is dedicated to a diversity of film culture and film art.

SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA will reopen on January 14th 2023 with the program Restart: TRANSTOPIA. For this collectively curated program we have invited curators, filmmakers and friends who have been involved in our previous programs. 

We ask: How, in a transnational society, can a new kind of cinema be collectively shaped? What significance do films, encounters and memories carry? What do they tell us about their historical and contemporary contexts and how do they actively form them? We come together to search for possible answers, inspirations and moments. 

Der Bau des neuen SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA und unsere Programme wurden gefördert durch den Hauptstadtkulturfonds, den Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis, die Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, den Bundesverband Soziokultur Zentren 2, NEUSTART Sofort­programm für Corona-bedingte Investitionen in Kultur­einrichtungen, den Fonds Soziokultur im Programm PROFIL:SOZIOKULTUR aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR.

Filmtexts by Enoka Ayemba (EA), Senem Aytaç (SA), Sun-ju Choi (SC), Popo Fan (PF), Borjana Gaković (BG), Tara Herbener & Luisa Matthias (TH&LM), Tobias Hering (TH), Esra Akkaya (EAK), Ehsan Khoshbakht (EK), Slavs and Tatars (S&T), Can Sungu (CS), Sarnt Utamachote (SU), Florian Wüst (FW)

Der Bau des neuen SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA und unsere Programme wurden gefördert durch den Hauptstadtkulturfonds, den Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis, die Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, den Bundesverband Soziokultur Zentren 2, NEUSTART Sofort­programm für Corona-bedingte Investitionen in Kultur­einrichtungen, den Fonds Soziokultur im Programm PROFIL:SOZIOKULTUR aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR.