With its film program, which is unique in Germany, the 813 film club is one of the most important cultural institutions in Cologne. The club celebrated its birth 30 years ago. A portrait.
Honor the beginning
Summer 1990: Iraqi troops invade Kuwait. The final demolition of the Berlin Wall begins. The Schengen Agreement is signed. A foul penalty against Argentina, converted by Andreas Brehme, made Germany the third time soccer world champion. The World Health Organization (WHO) is removing homosexuality from the diagnosis code for diseases. Yes, there was a lot going on in the world in the turning point. Also in Cologne.
Eight cineastes got together to show films in the cinema that had never been seen in Cologne, or had not been seen for a long time. Well-known, extraordinary films that they themselves always wanted to see on the screen, or films that no one had ever heard of.
They knew each other from the city’s cinemas: as regulars at the Cologne Cinemathek or the Broadway cinema on Ehrenstrasse. You were young, money was tight, and you worked as a projectionist in cinemas such as the Stadtgartenkino, the Lupe or the Film Palette. Some of them had already made their own films.
On January 12, 1991, the time had finally come for the newly founded Film Club 813: In the news cinema in Cologne’s main train station, the AKI, the first official film screening was to be celebrated with Rudolf Thome’s ROTE SONNE and thus the birth of the film club. But! Only a few hours before the screening, the operators of the cinema decided not to rent the cinema to the friendly young people. In the entrance hall of the main train station, there was a restless crush among the approximately 150 moviegoers who had appeared when they heard of the news. With the audience in tow and the film cans under their arms, they pulled into the film range for the starting shot of the 813 film club and sold the house two times in a row.
The fact that ROTE SONNE, an illustrious representative of the New German Cinema, became the premiere film was not a programmatic sign: “We weren’t interested in presenting German or European cinema. We just had cinema in mind. We wanted to show everything we found good in the group. There were surprisingly often overlaps, ”recalls founding member Bernhard Marsch, who has chaired the association together with Elena Wegner since 2010. Everyone had their own taste in film and brought their own talents to the organization of the screenings. A real collaborative effort by film enthusiasts. Many more successful evenings in cinemas such as the film palette, the Stadtgartenkino and also the large cinema of the adult education center followed. The income secured ever more ambitious film series with rare copies. It also became possible to invite outstanding filmmakers. A special highlight of the early years were the screenings on the roof of the adult education center in Cologne, which the film club 813 was supposed to play as an open air cinema for many summers. The film club even organized its own film festival 813 in the mid-1990s, which presented its members’ personal favorite films in the Stadtgarten cinema and in the British Council cinema.
The changing venues of the 813 film club offered the opportunity for real guerrilla cinema: In the Ehrenfeld Neptunbad, the killer fish classic PIRANHA was played during the bathing operation in the evening, in the Schulerecki dance school SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was played, so that you could swarm with John Travolta in the dance hall could.
A program as far as the cinema
Over the years, a varied, varied and game-driven program has been consolidated, which is what makes the 813 film club so special to this day. There you will find well-known and less well-known genre films as a matter of course alongside established arthouse classics from all over the world, rare, barely played documentaries, German comedies, a wide variety of short films and new discoveries that one comes across when researching archives.
The 813 film club often does pioneering work with many film series, for example with the rediscovery of filmmaker, actor and photographer Roger Fritz, who staged milestones in young German cinema with films such as MÄDCHEN, MÄDCHEN (1967). Another rediscovery was the Bulgarian-born director and writer Marran Gasov, who moved to Munich in the glorious 1960s. Even after his debut film ENGELCHEN OR THE VIRGIN OF BAMBERG (1968) he was considered one of the great talents of the Munich group. But Gasov had been completely forgotten after the early end of his film career in the 1970s until the 813 film club dedicated a retrospective to him in 2008. Unfortunately, he passed away a few days ago while this article was being written. The 813 film club did further pioneering work with countless other retrospectives, for example on Zbynek Brynych, Ulrich Schamoni, Roland Klick, or May Spils and Werner Enke.
The program of the 813 film club has always been characterized by a – one might say French – lightness and effortlessness. You never felt obliged to a canon. But the filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague such as François Truffaut, who, while they were starting their film careers, also ran a film club in Paris to show everything that cinema had to offer. Some of the first 813 film club members were and are filmmakers who would later be known as the “Cologne Group”. Show films, make films, talk about films, life is film … In order to plan the program for the coming weeks, people sit down at the beginning of the 1990s in the first “cool café” in Cologne, the Hallmackenreuther. Its owner had a heart for the young film enthusiasts who also showed their first Super8 films here.
A guest at the 813 film club
Also because some members made films themselves, it was an endeavor from the beginning not only to show films, but also to invite those colleagues who are valued to Cologne. Which offered an opportunity to dock with current filmmaking in Germany. As early as the mid-1990s, the young Christian Petzold was invited and talked to him and the audience about some of the characteristics of his films that would later be known as the stylistic devices of the “Berlin School”. Jonas Mekas, the godfather of American avant-garde cinema, was also a guest in the 1990s. Countless other guests followed, including Ulrich Seidl, Michael Glawogger, Elisabeth Spira, DEFA director Iris Gusner, and the actresses Angelika Waller and Andrea Rau.
Because not only directors were among the guests in the film club 813. One of the first major events was particularly remembered, at which 30 years of film music by the avant-garde band “Can” were celebrated. In addition to showing all of the films with their work, the five musicians – albeit not making music – came together on the stage of building 9 for a small reunion. To this day, all guests are immortalized on a large Polaroid wall in the office of the film club.
Film is film is film
Classical repertoire cinema was also often shown en bloc: 40 films by Ingmar Bergman alone were shown in 2004. Other successful series were dedicated to the films of John Cassavetes, Éric Rohmer, Jean Renoir, Jess Franco, actors such as Lino Ventura or genres such as American musicals. However, the Romy Schneider retrospective secured the “honorary title” of the series with the most visitors of all time in the 813 film club. Over the years, the film club had increasingly taken over the function of the Cologne Cinematheque, which had to stop operating in 2001, and reinterpreted it in its own way. Film mediator Helmut W. Banz, who had previously helped design the program for the Cinemathek in Cologne and unfortunately died in 2012, provided important impulses for the program.
A large film series is planned for the anniversary year 2021, which would like to celebrate 30 years of the Filmclub plus 20 years of Kino 813 with 50 films, working title: “30 + 20 = 50”.
The future of the 813 cinema in the BRÜCKE
Probably the most important step towards the consolidation of the Filmclub 813 as a cultural institution that radiates beyond the city limits was to find and operate its own theater. After changing venues, the film club has played regularly since 1995 in the British Council’s cinema in the municipal building DIE BRÜCKE am Neumarkt. After the British Council moved away, he has been the owner of the entire cinema equipment and inventory and the official operator of the 813 cinema in the BRÜCKE since July 1, 2001. In 2003, a council resolution granted him the right to use the cinema rent-free for 30 years as a sub-tenant of the Kölnischer Kunstverein. It was one of the fundamental conditions for the use of the entire building by the Kunstverein.
At the moment, however, it is more uncertain than ever whether the 813 film club will be able to continue to use its cinema in the next few years and decades. The year 2020 was a particularly difficult one for the club, the pandemic with its non-match operations was still one of the smaller problems. Because the Kölnischer Kunstverein, the main tenant of the BRÜCKE, surprisingly gave the film club an extraordinary and immediate termination in October 2020 for all of the leased premises: projection room, cinema and office. This was preceded by a conflict between the two clubs about the use of the hall, which had been rising again and again for years. Both parties have taken a position on this.
One of the first countermeasures of the film club was the publication of an open letter to the chairman of the Kölnischer Kunstverein to withdraw the termination without notice, signed by over 1,700 people to date. Including many well-known filmmakers and film lovers from Europe and overseas. This great, overarching solidarity underscores the enormous reputation that the work of the 813 Film Club has acquired over the decades, far beyond German national borders.
A few days ago the Kölnischer Kunstverein announced via the Kölner Stadtanzeiger that the 813 film club would now be sued for eviction. The conflict between the two parties has worsened to the point that it now looks completely muddled. Without the mediation of the city of Cologne and a clear, regulatory initiative by the cultural office, the continuation and permanent security of the 813 cinema in the BRÜCKE seems uncertain.
Werner Busch
Cover picture: The eight founding members of the 813 Film Club in December 1990 in the foyer of the AKI cinema in Cologne Central Station. From left to right: Eddi Herzog, Christine Brede, Stephan Holl, Joachim Kühn, Bernhard Marsch, Hans-Dieter Delkus, Udo Noll, Rainer Knepperges – Photo: Udo Noll
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