An Engineer Imagines
A cinematic tribute to Peter Rice – one of the most important engineers of the 20th century. The film takes us on a journey in the footsteps of architectural icons that would not have been possible without his design talent – the Sydney Opera House, the Centre Pompidou, the Louvre Pyramid. We also get to know the private face of the designer: we visit his home town in Ireland or Gourgoubès in France, where he built his magnum opus: The Full Moon Theatre. An Engineer Imagines is the story of a genius who has usually been overshadowed by his more famous architectural colleagues.
Plan for Paradise
Katii Juurus follows an unusual architectural and urban planning challenge, both in scale and premise, as she sets off with her camera from Finland to Nepal. The firm Helin&Co, known for its commercial office and retail spaces, is invited to design a new city in the Kathmandu Valley. Mutual expectations and notions of creating a paradise for 600,000 people to live in the new area are shattered not only by obvious cultural differences, but also by the Nepalese government’s visions, which are at odds with the real needs of the men and women who live there.
Drifting
“Drifting” takes us to construction sites in Istanbul, focusing on the living and working conditions of two young Kurdish men. Following in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers, they dream of changing their destiny and becoming teachers. But low pay and poor working conditions are just one more obstacle in their struggle for a better future. Director Somnur Vardar documents moments of weakness and doubt, but also of brotherhood and mutual help. She gives us a picture of the heroic work that brings the infrastructure of our cities to life.
Beating Sun
Max doesn’t dream of making green walls for five-star hotels. Tenacious landscaper, committed but cornered, he fights to create a wild garden, without fence, in the heart of downtown Marseille: a plant area open to all. After years of rejection, his project reached the final stage of an architecture competition. For Max, this is the last chance to offer oxygen to the people who are suffocating in an urban hell, under the beating sun.
After the End of the World
Suspended between a brutal past and an uncertain future, the city of Beirut lingers in a fragile and indefinite present tense. Reflecting on the aftermath of his father’s death, After the End of the World is the memoir of a filmmaker’s experiences in Beirut, a city haunted by loss. The film looks beyond Beirut’s political landscape, and focuses on the subtler notion of Beirut as an uncanny urban experiment. Contrasting ruins of the recent past with the influx of modernity, the film becomes a portrait of a city on the brink of perpetual disappearance.
The Proof of the Pudding
Insurance company Centraal Beheer’s office building in Apeldoorn, that dates back to 1972, is the pinnacle of the impressive career of the by now 90-year-old architect Herman Hertzberger. However what will remain of Hertzberger’s social, humanist ideals now plans have been laid to repurpose his masterpiece (as habitation)?
The Architect
The inner city of the future is an expensive, alienating and empty place – except for the living mannequins and shop assistants who, even in ostensibly public spaces, bully those who linger into buying things. Julie is an architect. She is lucky because she is working for a renowned architectural practice, even if only as a coffee-making intern. When a large project to build a thousand flats in the centre of Oslo is put out to tender, she has an idea: why not convert the underground car parks that are empty in the car-free city centre into residential buildings?