dortmunder u CENTRE FOR ART AND CREATIVITY

30
RWE Forum | U CINEMA
The RWE Forum on the ground-floor brings a versatile
venue for presentation and communication to the
U. It fulfils the spatial and technical requirements for
a regular cinema programme, and for seminars and
lectures as part of national and international conferences,
but also for a discourse between visual artists,
film-makers, media artists and the public. In addition
the RWE Forum is fully equipped for screening analogue
or digital film – making it one of the most modern
cinema spaces in Dortmund. The RWE Forum
has space for almost 200 people, and will provide
lecture and film events for the U’s cultural and higher
education institutions as well as for the general public.
Responsibility for the conceptual development of
the RWE Forum as a cinema is held by a supporting
association whose members include the U partners
as well as individuals closely involved with the U and
the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund |
Cologne. The creation of the RWE Forum was made
possible by the generous sponsorship of the RWE
Vertrieb AG, Dortmund.
Running a cinema for cinematic art is a demanding
curatorial job, an artistic, creative, substantial work.
The cinema programme incorporates works from
film history as well as films reflecting current events
and events in the art world, thereby enabling a
relevant critique of conventional cinema practice. In
pooling together the skills and international contacts
of all the in-house partners to develop outstanding
programmes of cinematic art and cross-media projects,
the U offers a unique basis for a cinema with
high ambitions. The RWE Forum | U Cinema is the
new festival address for the International Women’s
Film Festival Dortmund | Cologne. A cinema with the
latest technology, the open foyer, the Cathedral, the
Centre for Cultural Education all make the U into a
perfect festival venue.
The moving image is a young art form with a rapid
development in terms of its visual and technical form
and in terms of its content. The cinema programme
in the U is characterized by its courage to experiment.
It is open to new, intermedial forms of presentation
and open-minded about new visual concepts. Cinema
is still in its digital infancy; the task in hand here is to
stretch the boundaries of its capability. Collaboration
between the cinema and the universities is a good
basis for the fulfillment of this task and provides the
related chance of analysing the cinematic innovations
of the next generation.
Cinema in the U as a ‘School of Seeing’. Seeing and
understanding films – as with literature and the
visual arts – can be learnt and taught: as early as
possible, in the company of others if possible, if at all
possible in a cinema. The RWE Forum | U Cinema is
an important place for the artistic-aesthetic teaching
of film for schoolchildren of all ages and from
all kinds of school: in project weeks and in training
courses for teachers. Young people’s experiences of
film and images, often made via YouTube, MySpace
and other social networks, will be taken on board
and then developed in a productive way. The Cinema
will work closely with the Centre for Cultural
Education in the U.
The RWE Forum | U Cinema is open to all kinds of
themes, formats and target groups. All genres and
formats will be included, from short films, documentary
films, art films and feature films in their
original language, to experimental films. Groups
of people interested in film will have the chance to
construct and present their own programmes. The
cinema showings represent the ideal complement to
the U’s overall artistic concept: a place both for the
avantgarde of moving images and for film history, in
the centre of Dortmund, for all its citizens, for the
younger generation and for national and international
visitors. Integrated into the U’s network of innovative
cultural offers, the RWE Forum | U Cinema will
become a public space for cinematically outstanding
social experiences.
3D Simulation of the RWE Forum
© Gerber Architects