Mamani in El Alto (2022)

The Hermits

In the midst of the chaos of México City, a group of eight bachelor millennials who call themselves ´The Hermits´, open the doors to their tiny apartments in the historic Ermita Building, in the yet-to-be gentrified neighborhood of Tacubaya, and share their life experiences in a time when precarity changes the way in which we love, feel and relate to each other. As we explore the homes of these eight neighbors, we also witness their personalities intersect in a Whatsapp chat, a virtual space that functions as a supporting system that helps them face the adversities that living alone in this city brings.

Rietveld Houses: A piece of furniture to live in

In 2024, the iconic Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Gerrit Rietveld designed and built the house in close collaboration with his secret lover and creative partner Truus Schröder. Rietveld himself did not build his houses for eternity; he thought a life cycle of 50 years was sufficient. But the current owners of houses designed by Rietveld think differently about this. They pull out all the stops to renovate and preserve their Rietveld houses.

Reimagining A Buffalo Landmark

The Richardson Olmsted Campus, a former psychiatric center and National Historic Landmark, is seeing new life as it undergoes restoration and adaptation to a modern use.

Alvar Aalto: Technology and Nature

The Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) is one of the great figures of modern architecture, ranked alongside Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. This film analyses Aalto’s uniquely successful resolution of the demands and possibilities created by new technology and construction materials with the need to make his buildings sympathetic both to their users and to their natural surroundings. His inventive use of timber in particular represents both a reference to the forest landscape of Finland and a building material that is ‘warm’ and extremely adaptable. Filmed in Finland, Italy, Germany and the USA, this documentary shows how the Finnish natural environment and art traditions were essential elements in Aalto’s pioneering harmonization of technology and nature.

Architecture of Infinity

How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.

Crownsville Hospital: From Lunacy to Legacy

Crownsville Hospital: From Lunacy to Legacy is a feature-length documentary film highlighting the history of the Crownsville State Mental Hospital in Crownsville, MD.

Gaudí, le génie visionnaire de Barcelone

In Barcelona, the Casa Batlló alone sums up the genius of Antoni Gaudí. During the exhibition devoted to it by the Musée d'Orsay, we take a guided tour of this eccentric, colorful residence, completed in 1906.

Puerto escondido

In 1879, Bolivia lost its access to the sea in a war. When I was a child I did not understand how we had lost it; he thought the Chileans had taken him away in buckets. It is a diary towards interior landscapes, myths, characters and contradictions in a country that relives this loss every day.

Cologne Cathedral: The French Cathedral on the Rhine

An exploration of Cologne Cathedral, an emblematic monument and world heritage site. The towering place of worship took over 600 years to complete. Once the tallest building in the world, its ornate facade remains a masterpiece of Gothic architecture - and a reflection of the evolution of Franco-German relations.

Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando, a self-taught architect, proposes an international architecture that he believes can only be conceived by someone Japanese. His architecture mixes Piranesian drama with contemplative spaces in urban complexes, residences and chapels. This film presents the formative years of his impressive career before he embarked on projects in Europe and the United States.

Coast Modern

A core group of architects embraced the West Coast from Vancouver to LA with its particular geography and values and left behind a legacy of inspired dwellings. Today, architects celebrate the influence established by their predecessors.

Bauhaus 100

In 1919 an art school opened in Germany that would change the world forever. It was called the Bauhaus. A century later, its radical thinking still shapes our lives today. Bauhaus 100 is the story of Walter Gropius, architect and founder of the Bauhaus, and the teachers and students he gathered to form this influential school. Traumatised by his experiences during the Great War, and determined that technology should never again be used for destruction, Gropius decided to reinvent the way art and design were taught. At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines would come together to create the buildings of the future, and define a new way of living in the modern world.

The Devil's Miner

'The Devil's Miner' tells the story of 14-year-old Basilio who worships the devil for protection while working in a Bolivian silver mine to support his family.

Antonio Gaudí

Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) designed some of the world's most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject's organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film.

Empire City

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

Great Expectations: A Journey Through the History of Visionary Architecture

This documentary provides an astonishing journey through innovative, futuristic, utopian and sometimes bizarre architecture projects—including concrete illusions of grandeur and Lego-like modular apartments to an Instant City Airship and round, grass-covered subterranean dwellings—from the beginning of the 20th century to today.

Kochuu

A film about modern Japanese architecture, its roots in the Japanese tradition and its impact on the Nordic building-tradition. Winding its way through visions of the future, traditions, nature, concrete, gardens and high-tech, KOCHUU tells us how contemporary Japanese architects strive to unite the ways of modern man with the old philosophies in astounding constructions. Interviews with, and works by, Japanese architects Tadad Ando, Kisho Kurokawa, Toyo Ito and Kazuo Shinohara and Scandinavian architects Sverre Fehn, Kristian Gullichsen and Juhani Pallasmaa.

Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City

Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City reveals the fascinating life and complex legacy of architect and city planner Daniel Hudson Burnham. In the midst of the late nineteenth century urban disorder, Burnham offered a powerful vision of what a civilized American city could look like, one that provided a compelling framework for Americans to make sense of the world around them. A timely, intriguing story in the American experience, Make No Little Plans explores Burnham's impact on the development of the American city as debate continues today about what urban planning means in a democratic society.

About the Memoirs of a House

The life of a couple is observed through the home they have left behind.

Big Time

Big Time gets up close with Danish architectural prodigy Bjarke Ingels over a period of six years while he is struggling to complete his largest projects yet, the Manhattan skyscraper W57 and Two World Trade Center.

Les dames du 9e

Ladies of good families and social standing come to have their afternoon tea with their daughters who will someday follow in the same tradition. A charming portrait of a time that is slowly disappearing.

The End Of The Line: Rochester's Subway

"The End of the Line - Rochester's Subway" tells the little-known story of the rail line that operated in a former section of the Erie Canal from 1927 until its abandonment in 1956. Produced in 1994 by filmmakers Fredrick Armstrong and James P. Harte, the forty-five minute documentary recounts the tale of an American city's bumpy ride through the Twentieth Century, from the perspective of a little engine that could, but didn't. The film has since been rereleased (2005) and now contains the main feature with special portions that were added as part of the rereleased version. These include a look at the only surviving subway car from the lines and a Phantom tun through the tunnels in their abandoned state, among others, for a total of 90 minutes of unique and well preserved historical information.

Ztracený architekt Ernst Wiesner

Plot unavailable

When the Bull Cried

Danger, toil, and superstition pervade life in a mining town high up in the Bolivian mountains. Tin is the heartbeat of the community providing jobs and livelihoods - but at considerable cost. With deaths commonplace, people make offerings to El Tio, the devil under the earth, for protection and good fortune. But when the mountain's flow of tin ebbs, further measures must be taken...

Eiffel's Race to the Top

Behind the iconic Eiffel Tower lies the story of an incredible challenge to erect a thousand-foot tower that went far beyond a design competition, and marked a major turning point in engineering history. It was the beginning of radical transformation where iron was pitted against stone, engineering against architecture, and modern design against ancients. Press campaigns, lobbying, public conferences, denigration of opposing projects, bragging about big names - all participants engaged in a fierce battle without concession. Using 3D recreations, official sources (reports, letters, drawings...) and intimate archives obtained from their descendants, this film will bring to life this vertical race through a fresh and visual way to mark the centenary of Eiffel death.

Noble and Mundane Prague

A documentary film comparing current / everyday and historical / noble aspects of Prague.

Brooklyn Bridge

Today it's a symbol of strength and vitality. 135 years ago, it was a source of controversy. This documentary examines the great problems and ingenious solutions that marked the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. From conception to construction, it traces the bridge's transformation from a spectacular feat of heroic engineering to an honored symbol in American culture.

The Builders of the Alhambra

Kingdom of Granada, al-Andalus, 14th century. After recognizing that his land, always under siege, is hopelessly doomed to be conquered, Sultan Yusuf I undertakes the construction of a magnificent fortress with the purpose of turning it into the landmark of his civilization and his history, a glorious monument that will survive the oblivion of the coming centuries: the Alhambra.

Teatro Amazonas: The Art of Sound and Nature

The history of the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, an opera house located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, whose construction, between 1884 and 1896, depended on the labor exploitation of the local indigenous populations, provides an insight into the cultural, social and political situation in Brazil.

Le Corbusier, l'architecte du bonheur

Documentary devoted to the architectural and urban planning designs of Le Corbusier. The architect supports his in-depth reflection on the city and its necessary adaptation to modern life with plans, drawings and images, particularly Paris, whose revolutionary development dreamed of by Le Corbusier is exhibited here. Its first projects will remain at the stage of a model: the modernization plan for the city of Algiers. Some will be created by other architects: Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro, UN Palace in New York. From the post-war period in less than 10 years, Le Corbusier created large housing units in Marseille, Nantes, a chapel in Ronchamps, a factory in Saint-Dié, a town in Chandigarh in India. Through diagrams, the architect presents his theory of the "radiant city", the mathematical key modulor of his work as well as his project for reorganizing the countryside, industrial and urban cities into a grouping around a cooperative system.