In Residence: Ricardo Bofill

There are houses, and then there’s Ricardo Bofill’s house: a brutalist former cement factory of epic proportions on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. A grandiose monument to industrial architecture in the Catalonian town of Sant Just Desvern, La Fabrica is a poetic and personal space that redefines the notion of the conventional home. “Nowadays we want everyone who comes through our door to feel comfortable, but that's not Bofill’s idea here,” says filmmaker Albert Moya, who directed latest installment of In Residence. “It goes much further, you connect with the space in a more spiritual way.” Rising above lush gardens that mask the grounds’ unglamorous roots, the eight remaining silos that once hosted an endless stream of workmen and heavy machinery now house both Bofill’s private life, and his award-winning architecture and urban design practice.

Barcelone vu par Ricardo Bofill

A native of the capital of Catalonia, the architect-urban planner, to whom we owe the Saint-Honoré market in Paris and the Donnelley Building in Chicago, speaks of Barcelona with infectious passion. "It's a unique city, difficult to understand with conventional diagrams, he explains, criss-crossing the main arteries of the city". It is an unfinished city, constantly changing, where everything has the charm of the unfinished". With a sharp eye, Ricardo Bofill observes and comments on volumes and scrolls. Standing, in the nave of the Sagrada Familia, arms outstretched, it pivots on itself as if to take in space. "You have to have your eyes wide open, move quietly, and at the same time remember what's behind. This is how we have the sense of space. Otherwise this art does not exist."

Reconstituirea

In 1959, in Romania, six former members of the nomenclature and the secret police organize a hold up of the National Bank. After their arrest, the state forces them to play themselves in a film which reconstitutes the crime and the investigation. At the end of their trial, filmed live, they are sentenced to death and executed. except the women, Monica Sevianu that due to the fact that she had 2 children she was punished to do hard work for life.

Wilczy szaniec

De Gaulle bâtisseur

Hollywood's Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story

Nicknamed “Architect to the Stars,” African American architect Paul R. Williams had an incredible life. Orphaned at the age of four, Williams grew up to build mansions for movie stars and millionaires in Southern California. From the early 1920s until his retirement 50 years later, Williams was one of the most successful architects in the country. His clients included Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. His name is associated with icons like the Beverly Hills Hotel, the original MCA Headquarters Building and LAX Airport. But at the height of his career Paul Williams wasn’t always welcome in the restaurants and hotels he designed or the neighborhoods where he built homes, because of his race. “Hollywood’s Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story” tells the compelling, but little known story, of how he used talent and perseverance to beat the odds and create a body of work that can be found from coast to coast.

Fernand Pouillon, Le roman d'un architecte

Constructing freestone buildings on the cheap, Pouillon made a name for himself at the end of the 1940s in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille, shaking up his peers who only dreamed of towers and concrete bars. In Algiers, until Independence, he built in record time thousands of homes for the poorest, real urban projects inspired by traditional forms. In the Paris region, to build comfortable buildings quickly and well, nestled in the greenery, he becomes a promoter: this too adventurous bet leads him to prison and retains his reputation. Not very explicit about this complex affair, but seduced by a contemporary architecture that combines technical inventiveness and ancient references, Christian Meunier films by multiplying the angles of view. Today's lively atmospheres are interspersed with archive footage, while Pouillon's writings are read off. Moved, his collaborators evoke a demanding and generous man, with an infectious passion.

Neutra: Survival Through Design

This insightful documentary feature from PJ Letofsky serves as a profile of iconic Austrian-American Architect Richard Neutra, whose work and legacy have helped shape the modern understanding of design, architecture and the interconnected fabric of nature. Today, Richard's legacy lives on through his son, Dion, who has taken up his father's mantle after nearly three-decades under his mentorship.

INFRASTRATA

Amongst the contemplative static shots of decaying architecture weaves an abstract narrative unveiling the life-cycle of a higher perception, too large to perceive. Shot at various sites across south-east England, INFRASTRATA is a study on the concept of super-organisms, and the relationship between structure and nature.

Así Nació el Obelisco

The construction of the Obelisco in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Fernand Pouillon, Une architecture habitée

In this documentary, Marie-Claire Rubinstein reveals to us, through the testimonies of the inhabitants who live there, the architectural achievements of the French urban planner Fernand Pouillon in Algiers. In particular the vast complexes of hundreds of social housing units, including the most famous Diar E Saâd (1953), Diar El Mahçoul (1954) and Climat de France (1957). The historical context, during the war of independence is related by the historian Benjamin Stora and Nadir Boumaza. This documentary also evokes the personality of Fernand Pouillon in a post-colonial context.

Berlin Babylon

A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

No Festival

Due to a pandemic, the Electric Castle music festival shifts into an intimate concert staged for cameras instead, with three bands and no live audience.

Der Gaudi code

La Sagrada Familia – although still under construction in Barcelona – is a cathedral without any flaws. Almost 100 years after his death, experts are convinced that Gaudi was a mathematical genius and that each embellishing ornament of the Sagrada Familia actually serves an architectural purpose.

Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future

Best known for designing National Historic Landmarks such as St. Louis’ iconic Gateway Arch and the General Motors Technical Center, Saarinen also designed New York’s TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Yale University’s Ingalls Rink and Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges, Virginia’s Dulles Airport, and modernist pedestal furniture like the Tulip chair.

A Life's Work

What’s it like to dedicate your life to work that won’t be completed in your lifetime? Fifteen years ago, filmmaker David Licata focused on four projects and the people behind them in an effort to answer this universal question.

Sagrada Família, le défi de Gaudí

Combining real footage, archival footage, fiction and 3D modeling, this unseen documentary traces the history of this spectacular and unfinished work.

Der Stoff, aus dem Träume sind

La restanza

Castiglione d'Otranto, in the South of Italy. A group of thirty-year-olds no longer accept that the solution to the economic, ecological and political problems of the territory is always "to leave". They propose to the villagers who own pieces of uncultivated land, often felt as a burden, to put them in common. They decide to stay, to link their lives to the land and to invest in a value: being together. Castiglione becomes the village of restance. They cultivate ancient seeds and local biodiversity, they make decisions together, they develop a local economy. Accepting the shadows of the past, another potential of the place is rediscovered.

Varză, cartofi și alți demoni

1 village, 1.000 tractors, 100.000 tons of cabbages & potatoes each year - which are hardly sold and eventually destroyed. Is there any way out?