Screening 4

SCREENING – Artist Films on sub- and counterculture is a six-part short film series that brings together film and video works by internationally renowned artists with rarely screened underground films. Across six evenings in summer 2026, Kantine am Berghain presents short films that explore music, the body, and identity in the context of sub- and countercultures in various ways. Admission is free.



SCREENING

Artist films on sub- and counterculture

Kantine am Berghain

23 June, 1 July, 8 July, 30 July, 5 August and 12 August

Yalda Afsah & Ginan Seidl

Boy, 2015, 30’

Farahnaz is 13 years old and was raised as a ‘Bacha Posh’ in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. According to this cultural practice, kids considered as girls are dressed as boys from their birth or a young age, and raised in this social ‘function’. Farahnaz consciously lives with the freedoms and duties of a boy in a society dominated by patriarchal traditions. The film approaches its protagonist with great sensitivity and paints a thoughtful portrait of identity, social roles and everyday life, caught between conformity and self-determination.

Yalda Afsah (born 1983, lives and works in Berlin) is an artist and filmmaker whose work straddles the boundaries between documentary and staged imagery. In her films and installations, she explores power dynamics, rituals and collective practices, as well as the relationship between humans, animals and the environment. Her works have been shown at venues including the Locarno Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Winterthur International Short Film Festival, the Ludwig Forum Aachen and the Kunsthaus Hamburg.

Ginan Seidl (b. 1984) is a filmmaker who lives and works in Halle (Saale) and Berlin. She has been awarded several art prizes and was a resident artist in Istanbul and Mexico. Her works have been presented internationally at film festivals and in numerous exhibitions, including at the Berlinale’s Forum Expanded, Visions du Réel, CPH:DOX and FICUNAM, as well as in various art institutions and galleries.

TRANSmisia x Courtesy

If agony is your objet petit a, what am I?, 2026, 2’

Girls can wear Jeans … and their hair short … and shirts … and boots.

’Cause it’s ok to be a boy.

But for a boy to look like a girl it’s degrading

’Cause you think being a girl is degrading.

Simply you'd love to know what it’s like … wouldn’t you?

Courtesy with Laura Schaeffer

intimate yell chapter II, 2024, 5’ 

Intimate Yell Chapter II is a rhythmic reflection on gender relations, masculinity and femininity within patriarchal structures. Through poetic references — including Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and the writings of Frank O’Hara and Tim Dlugos — the work opens up an emotional space shaped by fleeting encounters, the desire for closeness, and the tensions between digital and physical intimacy. Moving between the extroversion of the club and moments of quiet introspection, the video draws a sensitive portrait of friendship, desire, and loneliness.

Courtesy is a Danish artist and DJ who lives and works in Berlin. She is active internationally as a DJ, is a resident at NTS Radio, and is the founder and artistic director of the interdisciplinary platform Against Interpretation Club, through which she curates music releases, publications and events. Her practice spans DJing, composition, performance and visual art, and is strongly focused on social encounters – whether on the dancefloor, in performative settings or collective formats.

Sugano Matsusaki & Jonas Beile

GMT+9, 2024, 29’

Two Japanese women move to Berlin to escape the social constraints of their homeland and live together as a couple. Whilst Maki enjoys her new life, Saki hides the relationship from her mother and pretends she is still living in Tokyo. In a way, this is true, as Saki’s daily routine remains set to the Japanese time zone, GMT+9. Berlin, however, is not the dream destination they had imagined, and the freedom they had hoped for turns out to be a ticket into the harsh reality of self-assertion. A crisis ensues when Saki starts a new job as a ‘chat lady’ for a Japanese website, where she chats with male customers night after night.

Sugano Matsusaki (b. 1992, lives and works in Berlin) is an artist and filmmaker born in Okinawa. After studying sociology at Keio University in Tokyo, she studied Fine Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she completed her Meisterschüler degree in 2022. Her work engages with questions of identity, migration, language, and intimacy. Together with Jonas Beile, she develops films and installations based on research, interviews, and collective writing processes in Japanese, German, and English.

Jonas Beile (b. 1985, lives and works in Berlin) is an artist and filmmaker. He studied philosophy at the University of Freiburg and media art at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. His practice moves between film, installation, and documentary research, exploring the boundaries between authenticity, staging, and social roles.