Inhabitants of the Southern (the less privileged and known) part of Bucharest were invited to imagine that the area has become an independent city and that they were elected its mayors. They received a (mobile) office and some official insignia. The game turned into serious business when the mayors had…
What does a refugee camp look like? An elderly man tells us the story of his homelands, while his longing for home follows him far and near. He wants to go back, but that place is no longer there. His family, just like himself, have been forced to leave Pakistan…
This film is meant as a portrayal of the man and architect Gio Ponti. Throughout his career (which surpasses 50 years), Ponti has experimented with arts, crafts, objects, architecture and materials; his creation ranged from small to big – from the creation of a doorknob, to the urban planning of…
This film takes shape in the form of an investigative documentary, exploring a town adrift: Chișinău. Joined by a group of researchers, academics, architects, sociologists, urban activists and visual artists, the director probed the transformation processes and the urban planning undergone by the city before and after the proclamation of…
Even for a country historically plagued by earthquakes, the 2008 quake in the Sichuan province was devastating. Nearly 70,000 people were killed and thousands more were missing and never found, making it the deadliest quake in the country in three decades. The old town of Beichuan, home to 20,000 people,…
The village of Belchite in Aragon is emblematic for the collective oblivion that took over Spain after the Civil War. Today, the broken memory of its population is lost amongst the ruins of the old village (destroyed by battles during the war), and throughout the streets of the new establishment,…
After a career defined by genuine ideas and controversy, the architect Frank Gehry unveiled his first project in Australia, and the local community can’t decide whether it’s a triumph or a failure. The University of Technology in Sydney is also called the “a squashed paper bag” by its critics. The…
Giant was filmed at the famous, Romanian, Communist-era gymnastics schools of Onesti and Deva where people still train fanatically. Top young gymnasts talk about their love of the sport, their fears and dreams. The combination with archival material from the 1970s onwards reveals links between the photogenic sport and the…
Proiectul „Meșteșug Golescu” face parte din strategia fundației de concepere a unui brand durabil legat de patrimoniu. Colecția de obiecte de uz zilnic, inspirate de patrimoniul de arhitectură, este rezultatul unui proces de lucru având ca punct de iradiere Vila Golescu și meșteșugurile din Muscel, pornind de la noțiunea de peisaj cultural (natural, antropic,…
The biggest city in the northern hemisphere, Mexico City, is faced with an unprecedented water crisis even though, paradoxically, rain is an often occurrence in this enormous city. H2Omx explores the uncomfortable truth by means of an extraordinary excursion through the streets and houses of Mexico City, interviewing specialists and…
In 2013, Romulus Balazs, the director of the film, discovered a book highlighting an historic event of Romania, his native country, which he knew nothing about: its participation in the Holocaust. Browsing through it, he came across a series of photographs taken during a pogrom in the Romanian city of…
Not so long ago, almost every city in the world was transited by rivers. Why did they disappear? How did they vanish? And can we ever see them again? This documentary tries to find answers by corroborating with visionary urban thinkers, activists and artists from around the world, in the…
Matache area, in downtown Bucharest, has gone through radical changes that have influenced the community, leaving the neighbourhood in a state of social and economic disintegration. The documentary film “Matache – Berzei Buzesti” made by Dragos Lumpan is based on extensive footage. Changes in the area were recorded in videos, timelapse and photographs…
A team of professionals and 48 volunteers are building a new rescues point in the Fagaras Mountains, at 2160 meters high. Built in extreme conditions, the project is an innovation. The film follows these spectacular building process.
Approximately 100 women refuse to leave their homeland within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. While most of their neighbors are long gone and their husbands have died one by one, those elderly women stubbornly hold out. Why do they insist in living within a perimeter deemed by both scientists and the…
From neighbourly disputes over garlic-heavy cooking to memories of Ceaușescu’s heatless winters, this film explores the rich social and material universe of a Romanian apartment building. It follows the story of the block’s administrator, in his effort to mediate relationships between neighbours and maintain peace and order. In doing so,…
During the last century, the destruction of cultural heritage has had catastrophical consequences all over the world, and said war against culture is far from over. Unfrotunately, it’s impact is growing. In both Syria and Iraque, the so-called ”cradles of civilization”, thousands of years worth of cultural heritage dissappear as…
What does life look like within one of the world’s most interesting residential complexes? Built in the Copenhagen suburbs by the famous Danish architect Bjarke Ingels (BIG), “8 House” has changed the lives of those who inhabit it. Just like a game of lego, The Infinite Happiness draws the lines…
Johann Schaas is the last member of the Saxon community in Richis, small village in Romania. He keeps the key to the evangelic church in his city. There is a tradition that only the finest man from the village can be the key-holder. Who will be Johann Schaas’s successor?…
There are places where (reportedly) nothing happens. People left and never came back, others died, and a few remained. Nothing new under the sun: this is the story of industrialisation and urbanisation. But what is left behind? Or is it better to ask: who? From a forgotten village, somewhere…
In the year 1959, Richar Oyler, a public clerk from the small town of Lone Pine, California, requests that the well-known architect Richard Neutra build his house. To Oyler’s surprise, Neutra agreed. This was the start to a most unusual friendship which led to the creation of one of the…
This documentary has been shot over the duration of six years, from 2008 to 2014. It follows the process of building a house in the Netherlands and reveals the relationship between architect Ben van Berkel (UN Studio) and the couple who hired him for creating the home of their dreams.
UP STAIRS is an experimental dance film that uses the ladder as a performative pretext and as a symbol of the reactivated utilitarian / public space, reinterpreted and recreated through the interaction with the body, senses and personal filters. Involving six performers form the Romanian dance community, the metaphorical composition…
Filmed in ultra high-definition and imbued with spectacular aerial perspectives, this documentary shows us that water is a defining element for our planet, reminding us at the same time of the need we harbor for it. In Watermark, the viewer dives in a world defined by this force of nature,…
In Romania – Arad, in a former textile factory, the possibility of an alternative place for art is being questioned by the director of the film and, broadly, by a young initiative group for independent cultural events, which the director is part of. A personal, yet generally valid quest and…
