Le génie romain (2024)

Arne Jacobsen’s Modern Denmark

Danish documentary about the disobedient schoolboy with a talent for painting, who became one of Denmark’s greatest architects. His ideas were ahead of their time and often received criticism, but today, 50 years after his death, Arne Jacobsen's schools, town halls and libraries are still with us, and they define modern Denmark.

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.

Révélations Monumentales: Pétra, la rose du désert

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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.

Viking Warrior Women

Drama-led documentary following the life of Signe, an orphaned Chief's daughter, who, driven by revenge, becomes an explorer and trader in the lands of the Rus Vikings.

Tutankhamun: The Truth Uncovered

What killed King Tutankhamun? Ever since his spectacular tomb was discovered, the boy king has been the most famous pharaoh of all ancient Egypt. But his mysterious death, at just 19 years old, has never been explained. In this BBC One special, presenter Dallas Campbell reveals new scientific research and carries out unique experiments to get to the truth. For the first time, a virtual autopsy of Tut's mummified body reveals astonishing secrets about the pharaoh. Using CT scan data, the programme creates the first ever full size, scientifically accurate image of the real Tutankhamun. Brand new DNA analysis uncovers a shocking secret about Tut's family background, and the genetic trail of clues leads to a radical and revolutionary new theory to explain Tut's sudden and unexpected death. This is an epic detective story that uncovers the extraordinary truth of the boy behind the golden mask.

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.

Bamboo Theatre

This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.

Caligula with Mary Beard

What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?

Lewerentz Divine Darkness

A cultural-historical portrait of the renowned and enigmatic architect Sigurd Lewerentz, who rarely allowed himself to be captured on film.

Genius Loci: Carlo Scarpa and the Olivetti store

An examination of the Olivetti store in Venice, Piazza San Marco -- a true icon of Italian architecture of the twentieth century restored in the 1950s by Carlo Scarpa.

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.

Terry Jones' Barbarians

Terry Jones' Barbarians is a 4-part TV documentary series first broadcast on BBC 2 in 2006. It was written and presented by Terry Jones, and it challenges the received Roman and Roman Catholic notion of the barbarian. Professor Barry Cunliffe of the University of Oxford acted as consultant for the series.

Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors

Thousands of terracotta warriors guarded the first Chinese emperor's tomb. This is their story, told through archeological evidence and reenactments.

Amazones, femmes guerrières de l'Antiquité

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Sauver Notre-Dame

In the aftermath of the fire that struck Notre-Dame de Paris in 2019, the cathedral is in danger of collapsing. A race against time begins for a hundred men and women who will face danger, the unknown, and toxic lead dust for a year to save this world heritage site. Architects, stonemasons, carpenters, crane operators, scaffolders, rope access technicians, archaeologists: this unique project brings together rare skills. With rare enthusiasm and cohesion, they will achieve numerous technical and human feats. This film recounts the spectacular and moving adventure of these builders fighting to save Notre Dame.

Making Dust

Making Dust is an essay film, a portrait of the demolition of Ireland's second largest Catholic Church, the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas West, Dublin. Understanding this moment as a 'rupture', the film maps an essay by architectural historian Ellen Rowley on to documentation of the building's dismantling. Featuring oral interviews recorded at the site of the demolition and in a nearby hairdressers, the film invites viewers to pause and reflect on this ending alongside the community of the building. The film is informed by Ultimology, and invites its audience to think about the life cycles of buildings and materials, how we mourn, what is sacred, how we gather, what we value and issues of sustainability in architecture.

Ascenseurs : Une technologie XXL

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Space and Light

An award-winning wordless documentary that explores the architecture of the then new St. Peter's Seminary which is now seen as one of the most important post-war buildings in the United Kingdom. The film was made in celebration after architect Jack Coia was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1969. Winner of the Medalla de Bronce at the Fifth Union of International Architects Festival in Madrid (1975).

Amérique, la nouvelle histoire des premiers hommes

From the far north of Canada to the southern tip of Chile, through the southern United States, central Mexico and the Brazilian Mato Grosso, new concordant but still controversial archaeological discoveries have brought a new paradigm to the archaeology of American prehistory: the appearance of the first humans on the continent could date back to nearly 30,000 years before our era, that is to say, about 15,000 years earlier than the commonly accepted and taught thesis. Although there were a few mavericks in the past who disputed the scenario according to which the first ancestors of Americans arrived on foot through the Bering Strait 16,000 years ago, they were long kept out of the scientific community.

Bowlingtreff

The “Bowlingtreff” is a bowling alley situated right in the centre of Leipzig opened in July 1987. At that time the quality of life in Leipzig and the whole GDR got worse. Houses collapsed because of poor conditions, public life and amusement was on a very low level. The “Bowlingtreff” was not merely an urban entertainment centre but a revolution in those days. Built with the help of hundreds of volunteers without permission of the state authorities in Berlin the building expresses a free and international architecture known as postmodernism. It is an architecture that was never seen before in Leipzig. Marble and parquet on the floor, a glass roof and beautiful pink pillars. The atmosphere was western as time witnesses remember it.

The Hedge Theater

Filmed in Rome in the 1980s, the work draws on Borromini’s Baroque architecture and Il Sassetta’s St. Martin and the Beggar. Beavers contrasts winter’s subdued light with the verdant growth of spring, constructing a precise montage in which image and sound form a poetic dialogue.

Benny och kulturhuset

A portrait of Benny Fredriksson who for 16 years was CEO of Kulturhuset / Stadsteatern. He also had a background as an actor and director. In connection with a media hunt he resigned and later took his own life.

This Means More

Images of crowd simulation are faced with testimonies from Liverpool Football Club’s supporters who recall their experience marked by a tragic event: the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989, which changed the nature of the game of football.

Chauvet, voyage aux origines

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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.