The festival officially began with an opening speech given by the rector of the Christian-Albrechts- Universität in Kiel, Prof. Dr. Karin Peschel. The whole opening ceremony with words of greeting from several representatives of the city of Kiel, the "Freund der Antike e.V. Kiel", as well as the festival director Dr. Kurt Denzer, took place in the auditorium of the "Kieler Kunsthalle".

The opening programme was supposed to mirror the diversity of archaeological methods and filmic genres, including the scientific documentary just as the feature film embedding matter-of-fact and profound expert knowledge.

The Austrian film "Under the Sign of the Bee Goddess" opened the film programme: it is an example of a survey film about the hundred years of excavation work in Ephesos, and was followed by the French Film "Mémoire de Feu, Mémoire de terre" (1994) , a film on experimental archaeology.

The programme of the first night was completed with the first underwater-film "Càcciatore Sottomarini" (Italy, 1946), the archaeological adventure film "L`Eldorado Africano" (Italy, 1993) and a fascinatingly picturesque film on the culture and life of the Scyths "Le Mystère des Tombes de Sibérie" (Belgium, 1993).

The matinée programme of the following day was put together aiming at a young audience, and it was very well accepted.

"Roman Ships of Oberstimm" (Germany, 1994) entertained the audience with an anything but boring account of the meticulously patient efforts of an excavation. The Italian contribution "Frammenti del Passato" (Italy, 1995) claimed to have been specifically created for young scholars: it illustrates the situative context of an excavation by means of a particular site together with animated scenes with the background of excavated archaeological finds, and it shows the single layers and their chronological order which again assists in distinguishing different cultural eras.

The highlight of this matinée definitely was "The Money Mouse", a film taken from the series "The Programme with the Mouse", which demonstrated the history of money in a didactically convincing yet still amusing way. Particularly exciting for the young audience was the fact that the film`s author, Armin Maiwald, was amidst the guests of CINARCHEA and not just prepared to answer all questions but just as well satisfied all autograph-hunters.

As part of the Retrospective of earlier prize-winners the film produced by the AG-Film of the CAU ,"The Bell of Hedeby", was then put on show: it documents the several stages of the reproduced casting of the oldest bronze bell found in Northern Europe.

The afternoon-programme was dedicated to archaeological reconstructions and methods. The Swiss film "Lausanne à l'époque romaine" (1995) is a virtual sightseeing visit of a rich Roman domus; "L'Artisanat Gallo-Romain" (CH 1995) introduced several Gallo-Roman forms of craftsmanship. The films "Sensations Under Water" (Germany, 1995) and "Aquazul" (Guatemala 1995) presented underwater-archaeology and the German film " Treasure Hunting From the Air" (1994) aerial projection. The evening-programme was characterized by a series of "Roman" films. For example the Italian film "Cyberoma" (1995) demonstrated the potential of CD-ROM and attempts to make the ancient Rome virtually passable.. The second film taken from the series "The Programme with the Mouse", "The Rome-Mouse" met with quite an enthusiastic reception from the adult audience too. Though 71 minutes long, the feature film "Die Hermannsschlacht" ("The Hermann Battle") got a good amount of interest and attention from the audience in spite of some lenghty passages and in spite of the late hour it was put on show: the film delivers a humorous gentle mocking of the myth around this battle.

The next morning programme opened with a very special presentation: Hauke Lange-Fuchs and Jörg Klinner did celebrate a Laterna-Magica-Presentation which took the audience by way of the Franklin-expedition into the Arctic at a time when there was no cinema yet. It was followed by an Estonian cartoon "Legends of Tallinn: the Oleviste church" (Estonia, 1985). The German documentary film "Groß Raden - The Old Slavonic Temple Site" (1993) was a commissioned production for the usage in a museum. The Terra-X-film "The Spirits From the River of Tombs" (Germany, 1993) gained attention by showing an example of how successful or how unlucky feature film plots may be integrated into an archaeological documentary film.

The afternoon programme put on show several short archaeological films. The Italian "Slacche" (1994) and the Belgian "Le Parc Archéologique de Lavrion" (1994) have a common topic: early iron-processing. The German "Capreolus" (1995) and the French "Il Était Deux Fois" (1994) concentrated on experimental archaeology.

The cartoon "Paracas" (USA/Chile 1995) presents, on the basis of animated motives from carpets, scenes reflecting the daily life of those people who made and created these carpets two thousand years ago. The Belgian film "Le Chesle de Bérismenil" (1993) and the German film "The Golden Era of the Celts" (1995) present aspects of Celtic life and history.
A political notion was brought into the programme by the two German productions "Archaeological Earth Finds"(1995) and "Hunters, Fences and Scavengers" (1993): they critically reflect upon the expansionist construction work in the new Bundesländer which rather too often collide with archaeological interests.

In the evening the programme was once again opened with a film by F. Alliata, "Tonnara" (Italy, 1947), followed by the first part of the ZDF-series "Schliemann`s Legacy", "On the Track of Perished Empires" (Germany 1995). The fundamental questioning of this film, and the series as a whole, is: facing our enourmous ecological problems, is there a way we might learn something by studying perished empires?

In a slightly more unpretentious fashion the French production "Du Fond du Lac" (1995) reports on the excavation works on a medieval settlement, which, shortly after its foundation, was hit by torrents of water and had ever since been lying under water, untouched by any human hand. After a short break the Belgian film "La Grotte Scladina" (1994), which had been awarded at the Bordeaux Festival was put on show: it demonstrates in a didactic manner the workings at a neolethic site. The longest film of this evening programme was "Secrets of the Pharaohs" (Sweden 1995), in which the DNA of the Pharaos of the 18th Dynasty is being searched for - starting point for the identification of yet unknown mummies. The evening programme was finished with a contribution belonging to the Short-Film-programme: "Der Kanal" (Germany 1995).

The next morning the audience were led into the world of the Scyths with the Russian film "The Scythian Siberian World" (1994). The Swiss production from 1995 "Har Karkom: Montagna di Dio?", calls into question whether the mountain of Sinai was indeed the historic place, where the commandments were handed over to Moses. The Spanish film "L'Oblit del Passat: Jemen" (1994) is about archaeological regional geography.

In the afternoon the Italian film "Kebra Negast" (1995) presented fragments of the kingdom of Axum - the only Christian empire in Africa. The Greek film "Writing from Venice in 1453" (1994) attempts to integrate the description of the history of Byzanz and Venice into a feature plot, the centre part of which is made up by fictional letters.. Two films followed focussing on Egyptian pyramides: the Italian film "Pisa chiama Fayum" (1994) gives a survey of the oasis Fayum, "Dalle Alpi alle Pyramidi" (I 1995) records the monumental architecture of the pyramides.

Saturday night was the award ceremony-night. The ceremony began with a another show of the Laterna-Magica-programme and then the "Wintergarden-Prgramme" of the Brothers Skladanowsky were put on show, which made history, since it had been the very first public cinema show on November the 1st 1895 in Berlin.

Following the detailed report of the reasons leading to their decisions by the head of the jury, Dr. Erwin Keefer, the winner-films of the "Große Preis" and the "Publikumspreis" were shown again. After one other film by F. Alliata, "Tra Scilla e Cariddi" (I 1948), the British film "Iceman" (1992) was introduced as part of the Retrospective and to give the chance of a comparative viewing: "Iceman" focusses on the rescue work and the scientific classification of "Ötzi"(...)

CINARCHEA '96 ended on Sunday with the following programme:

Two prize-winning films from earlier festivals were presented. the Danish film "In the Great Pyramide" (1972), fascinating by means of its skilfully sensitive handling of the camera by filmmaker Jorgen Roos, and the German film "Der Diener des Fürsten" (1982),documenting the excavations at a celtic grave near Hochdorf in Baden-Württemberg. Both films deal not only with the results of such work but put forward the critical question, which kind of intentions achaeologists do have during the course of such longterm projects and how these may change over time. The afternoon-programme had to be re-organized because of technical problems. thus, instead of the announced films, the film that won the "Große Preis" in 1994, "Under Roman Rule" (Germany 1992), and the film "Roman Ships from Oberstimm" which had, just the day before, won an award could be viewed. They were followed - now again in line with the original planning - by the winding and entwined stories about the Pergamon-temple told in the German film "From Bergama to Berlin" (1990).

Saturday Night the programme was dominated by two US-american productions. The documentary film "Vikings in America" nearly overwhelmed the European audience with meticulously detailed data and informations on the history of the Vikings in the New World. "The Tree of Iron" (USA 1988) reports about the search for age-old techniques that enabled ancient African forges to produce high-quality steel.

This was followed by the première of the latest production of the "Arbeitsgruppe Film der CAU": "Unewatt-A Village with a Museum and A Museum with a Village". This longterm documentary project records the several stages in the creation of and construction work for the Landscape Museum "Angeln" in "Unewatt", which again delineates the changes in the rural fabric of the buildings between the 17th and 20th century.