The episodic fashion film “GIGA 8” was produced during the 2025/26 winter semester at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle (BURG) and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). The premiere will take place on 1 July 2026 at 6 pm at Cinema Paris as part of the Institut français Berlin’s “Nights of Ideas 2026”.

GIGA 8 is a collaborative project initiated by Prof. Stini Röhrs (Moving Image, Berlin University of the Arts – UdK) and Prof. Lars Paschke (Fashion Design, Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle). Bringing together two distinct artistic disciplines and institutions, the project explores new forms of storytelling at the intersection of film and fashion.

Developed during the winter semester 2025/26, GIGA 8 is an experimental episodic fashion film created by students from both programs working in close interdisciplinary exchange. At its center is actress and model Gigi Spelsberg — at once a real person, a performative figure, and a projection surface for social questions. Her lived experience provides the basis for the conception of themes explored throughout the film.

Across eight interconnected episodes, the film weaves together clothing, body, camera, and narrative into a series of cinematic studies. Rejecting linear storytelling and conventional fashion film formats, GIGA 8 moves fluidly between fiction and reality, intimacy and staging, performance and identity. Fashion is not treated as mere surface, but as an active force in shaping and negotiating identity.

The collaboration between the two universities forms the core of the project: each episode emerges from a dialogue between film and fashion, image and material, concept and embodiment. This exchange opens a shared space of experimentation in which new visual languages and narrative structures can unfold.

Engaging with questions of visibility, authorship, and self-construction, GIGA 8 reflects on how identities are formed between personal agency and external projection. The episodic structure allows for multiple perspectives — from moments of transformation and exposure to dynamics of control, desire, and self-empowerment — interweaving personal, political, and poetic dimensions.

GIGA 8 proposes fashion as a lived and performative practice, and film as a medium through which these processes become visible. The project ultimately invites audiences to reconsider the boundaries between image and reality, authorship and representation, and to reflect on the ways we construct and perceive identity today.

The project was developed together with Pauline Pyras (UdK) and Dana Elmi Sarabi (Artistic Associate, BURG). Additionally, Göksu Kunak, Antony Franz and Adam Russell-Jones contributed to the choreography as movement coaches. A special thanks goes to the Institut Français for providing a location.

Following the screening, actress and lead Gigi Spelsberg, along with the two project directors, Prof. Stini Röhrs and Prof. Lars Paschke, will discuss the film’s production, the collaboration between fashion and moving images, and issues of staging, identity, and performance. Moderated by Zuzanna Czebatul.

Participating students of BURG: Inanna Natalie Annoh, Frieder Paul Bassfeld, Lea Rosa Casparek, Henriette Gröger, Raffael Jakob Harrer, Mira Lu Haselow, Sophie Kerschbaumer, Malgorzata Leszcyriska, Mattis Melchior Meretz, Magdalena Jocic, Gent Törber.
Participating students of UdK Berlin: Subin Ahn, Mika Baum, Carolyn Beyer, Philipp Conrads, Sofie Fink, Felix von der Goltz, Sergey Kuchin, Leara Manhaes Reis, Elsa Maria Molinari, Elvis Perales, Anja Rudzinski, Gala Rummenhöller, Tobias Scholze, Justus Siebrecht, Jereon Wijne, Yechan Yung

GIGA 8 – Joint project by BURG and the Berlin University of the Arts celebrates its premiere
Premiere: Wednesday, July 1, 2026, 6 p.m.
Venue Cinema Paris, Kurfürstendamm 211, 10719 Berlin
Run time: 20’25’’
Original languages: English / German / French
Concept and artistic supervision: Prof. Lars Paschke (BURG), Prof. Stini Roehrs (UdK Berlin)
Project development: Pauline Pyras (UdK Berlin), Dana Elmi Sarabi (BURG) 
With works by Studierenden des Studiengangs Modedesign (BURG) und des Studiengangs Bewegtbild (UdK Berlin) 
Protagonist: Gigi Spelsberg
Choreography Göksu Kunak, Antony Franz, Adam Russell-Jones
Tickets: Tickets are available here!