Clubbing Before Techno - Films, Talk, DJ Performance

Soundwatch goes Tag der Clubkultur with films, talk and a DJ performance. Short films explore clubbing experiences in both West and East Berlin from the 1960s to the 1980s. Turn on, tune in and drop out at Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Kreuzberg (a Krautrock and experimental music hangout). Check out autonomous youth clubs on both sides of the Wall and experience disco, punk and new wave. La Belle, a popular soul, funk and hip hop disco far from trendy City West night spots, was a meeting place for African American GIs and locals (many Turkish) when it was destroyed by Libyan sponsored terrorists in 1986. Three clubgoers died. As the 1980s drew to a close, the seeds for the acid house parties and Goths dancing to EBM bridged paved the way for the techno revolution.

After the film screening and audience discussion, DJ Sporty Jack (aka artist, curator and project space Spor Klübü operator Matthias Mayer) will spin historic club tunes in the cinema lobby.

Soundwatch

Soundwatch is a platform for research, presentation and reflection of interfaces between music and moving image. Point of departure was the founding of Soundwatch Music Film Festival in 2017. Our annual festival presents 15-20 films or film programs: music documentaries, fiction films with a music focus, music mockumentaries, music videos and music-related experimental film and media art. Moving images engaging with club culture – documentaries about club scenes and figures current and historical, presentation of A/V performances – figure strongly in our program. Soundwatch also organizes monthly film screenings, commissioning music videos, exhibitions, knowledge production and organization of concert and club events.