New Towns for Old(1942)

ZONA/(it)

Milan, western suburbs. In one of the nine districts ("zone") of the city, the students of the "Rosa Luxemburg" trade school meditate over the meaning of living in the suburbs. And they do so using their smartphones, filming their days and looking for a common thread among their lives. Crossing and mixing video-diaries, documentary shooting and fictional scenes, the project struggles to take a definite shape: every character and perspective channels the tale in a different direction, escaping from linear narrative lines and bringing us to some kind of archipelago.

Le bled (Buildings in a Field)(en)

A collaboration between Jem Cohen with writer Luc Sante made in Tangier, Morocco, a city where neither of us had ever been. En route from the airport to the city center, we found ourselves amazed by the landscape outside of the car windows; a massive construction project under way in all directions. While not in itself unusual, we were by struck dumb by the epic scale and seemingly incomprehensible plan of the development and were drawn to return together to this puzzling zone. This project was commissioned by TAMAAS, a small foundation based in Paris, as part of their Tangier project, The 8.

Building the Gherkin(en)

Can a single building impact the career of an architect, the image of a global company and even the skyline of a big city? Just a month and a day after the disastrous attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the first steel beam of a new tower is erected in London. One question is on everybody’s mind: is it the right decision to build a new iconic tower in the midst of London’s financial district, on a site that has already been bombed before? The 40-storey steel and glass tower sparks further controversy. Norman Foster, one of Britain’s most visionary architects, calls his design for the new Swiss Re London headquarters ‘radial – socially, technically, architecturally and spatially’. In fact, its size and shape are so radical that it is almost immediately nicknamed ‘the erotic gherkin’. Will the Gherkin become the landmark they all dream of?

Naissance d'un hôpital(fr)

Silver Memories(en)

Heralded as a palace among minor and major league baseball stadiums, Silver Stadium set a standard of excellence from opening day. From May 1929 through the 1990s Silver Stadium served as home to Rochester's historic baseball team, The Rochester Red Wings, as well as many other sporting teams. When not being used as a baseball stadium, the space served as center stage for a variety of traveling acts. Hear from the people closest to the history of this magnificent facility as they take you on a journey through The Memories of Silver.

Mackintosh: Glasgow's Neglected Genius(en)

The film examines Mackintosh's iconic buildings, notably the Glasgow School of Art. Interwoven with his architecture, design and watercolours is the personal story of Mackintosh. Little known at home, his work found favour on the continent. In later years he struggled for work, and came to endure real poverty, but continued to create remarkable pieces of art.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh: A Modern Man(en)

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, architect, designer and artist is celebrated around the world as one of the most significant talents to have emerged in the period from the mid 1890s to the late 1920s. He was one of the greatest, most original talents of this time and has been judged a precursor of firstly the modernist style and subsequently of the Art Deco movement. His legacy lives on all around us in his instantly recognisable style. A MODERN MAN takes a critical look at Mackintosh’s life and artistic career and the importance of the friends and patrons who provided him with regular work when it mattered most.

Ascenseurs : Une technologie XXL(fr)

The Infinite Happiness(en)

Copenhagen’s “8 House,” an ultramodern loop of apartments created by architect Bjarke Ingels, reinvents the concept of “home.” Its 500 residents can traverse all nine floors by bike while their kids attend kindergarten on the ground floor. This exuberant documentary profiles the (mostly) happy residents, including a group of children who experience the best scavenger hunt ever, offering a hopeful, inspired picture of communal living by design.

Sauver Notre-Dame(fr)

The Nature of Space(en)

In The Nature of Space, Frank Scheffer juxtaposes the ideas of two Dutch architects: the Benedictine monk Dom H. van der Laan and the anthroposophic architect Ton Alberts. Van der Laan represents a plain and pure architecture, based on his own research into ratios. He designed churches and monasteries, among them a monastery in Vaals. Ton Alberts works from organic forms, as demonstrated by his design of the NMB Bank headquarters in Amsterdam. Director Frank Scheffer stresses the difference in style between these architects, both of whom allow their spiritual background to be reflected in their work, by adopting a very different camera style in the case of each. (filmcommission.nl)

Bachar à la ZAD(fr)

The Real Thing(fr)

A smaller scale Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Elysées can be found just outside Shanghai; a copy of St. Peter’s in Rome can be found in Yamoussoukro, in the Ivory Coast: a journey over three continents to see the architecture of imitation, the uncanny world of the fake.

The Architects of Hope: The First Steps in Rebuilding Ukraine(en)

This feature documentary follow 5 architects on their determined journeys to continue building during wartime, as they seek a new people-focused identity for Ukrainian architecture. While Russia continues to turn former Ukrainian cities to dust, Ukraine’s leading architects are already building upwards & advanced new buildings are rising again as symbols of hope.

Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud(en)

Filmmakers Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon profile Richard Buckminster Fuller, architect and inventor of the geodesic dome.

Eugenio's Close Up: Inside the Slums of Buenos Aires(en)

Eugenio's Close Up: Inside the Slums of Buenos Aires A professional photographer seeks to infuse his Buenos Aires slum with art, creativity and free expression. As with so many of the marginalised shanty towns of Latin America, there is a wellspring of violence and economic despair. Caught in the ever-shifting instability of Argentina's economy, there is little chance that these slums will be transformed or that their residents will be able to easily escape the country's cyclical poverty. Despite this for Eugenio, a 32-year-old photographer who still calls the slum of Villa 15 his home, there is a persistent richness to the life around him, and hope.

Nel silenzio del parco(it)

Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm(en)

"What we were trying to do was the ultimate form of architecture, which was predicting how society would use space, land and time." Curtis Schreier, ANT FARM Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm is the first film to consider the work of the renegade 1970s art/architecture collective Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch. Radical architects, video pioneers, and mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers created a body of deeply subversive multidisciplinary work that questioned the boundaries of architecture and everything else in the process. Incorporating breathtaking archival video, new footage shot over ten years and animation based on zany period sketches, this film is about the joy of creation in a time when there were no limits. —Beth Federici

Goff(en)

GOFF explores the life of architect Bruce Goff, one of the most innovative yet forgotten American architects of the 20th century, and the path that lead to the destruction and restoration of his memory and dwellings.

Up to Down(it)

Naples. Home of the unbowed, of madmen and paupers. A city that refuses to lick anyone's boots, let alone stoop to pretense. This documentary bad trip takes us on a tour of the city's dismal suburbs and into the homes of the marginalized and rejected: a man, a girl, and a masked boxer - three protagonists yearning for something else, although they're not quite sure what. (Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2019)