Funkiskungen

Bird's Nest - Herzog & de Meuron in China

Schaub and Schindelm’s documentary follows two Swiss star architects, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, on two very different projects: the national stadium for the Olympic summer games in Peking 2008 and a city area in the provincial town of Jinhua, China.

Gray Matters

Gray Matters explores the long, fascinating life and complicated career of architect and designer Eileen Gray, whose uncompromising vision defined and defied the practice of modernism in decoration, design and architecture. Making a reputation with her traditional lacquer work in the first decade of the 20th century, she became a critically acclaimed and sought after designer and decorator in the next before reinventing herself as an architect, a field in which she laboured largely in obscurity. Apart from the accolades that greeted her first building –persistently and perversely credited to her mentor–her pioneering work was done quietly, privately and to her own specifications. But she lived long enough (98) to be re-discovered and acclaimed. Today, with her work commanding extraordinary prices and attention, her legacy, like its creator, remains elusive, contested and compelling.

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.

DUE SEGNI

A film commissioned by architects Vitangelo Ardito and Nicoletta Faccitondo (Polytechnic University of Bari) as a companion piece to the book 'Umberto Riva. Perciò è sempre una sorpresa - 19 conversazioni'.

Nepoškodovane

The Balkans cradles Europe's last wild rivers and supports abundant wildlife and healthy, intact ecosystems. These rivers are "The Undamaged" – clean, pristine, and undammed. With over 2,700 small and large hydro power plants planned or under construction in the Balkans, corruption and greed are destroying the last free-flowing rivers of Europe. Follow the Balkan Rivers Tour, a rowdy crew of whitewater kayakers, filmers, photographers and friends who decided to stand up for the rivers, travelling from Slovenia to Albania for 36 days, kayaking 23 rivers in 6 countries to protest the dams and show the world the secret wild rivers of the Balkans. The film honours everyday people and local activists who are fighting to defend rivers and aims to spread the word of the plight of these rivers, showing a new style of nature conservation that is fun, energetic and effective.

Richard Meier in Rome Building a Church in the City of Churches

Known for his bold, abstract and stark white buildings, American architect Richard Meier now takes on the challenge of building the Jubilee Church in Rome. Holding the location in high regard, Meier praises the vibrant visual layout of the city and tells us, "Rome is a city of architecture; it's a city of walls and columns and spaces and places and defined places and wherever you look there's architecture" (Richard Meier). Staying true to his signature design style, Meier has created a structure resembling grand soaring sails which appear steady and peaceful as they stand in striking opposition to the city's landscape. Three curved walls separate three distinct spaces: the main sanctuary, the weekday chapel and the baptistry, each with its own entrance. As a contrast he shows us his favorite churches in Rome by his famous colleagues from earlier times.

Mario Botta. Architettura e Memoria

The film arose from an encounter with Mario Botta during the 2013 Architecture and Memory exhibit held at the Charlotte, North Carolina Bechtler Museum of Modern Art which was designed by the architect. The exhibit gathered and then proposed to the public the Swiss architect’s most significant projects spanning the gamut from his first single-family homes, original expressions of the School of Ticino, to his large public buildings, libraries, theatres, museums, churches and synagogues which have been built across the globe and features more than 90 works. The film is a dialogue on the themes which characterize Mario Botta’s vision and practice: his relationship with history and the territory, the designing of collective spaces, encounters with the leading protagonists of the 20th century. The interview, conducted in Mario Botta’s studio in Mendrisio, is replete with photographic materials, designs and sketches which document his “spaces of memory”.

Architects Herzog and deMeuron: The Alchemy of Building & The Tate Modern

Visiting examples of Herzog and de Meurons ground-breaking style, this film reflects their capacity to astonish and explore the way in which they transform what might otherwise be ordinary through new treatments and techniques.

Une ville à Chandigarh

Documentary on the construction of Chandigarh, the new capital of the Indian Punjab region, planned by Albert Mayer and Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

Codelli

Codelli is a feature-length docudrama about a little-known film project by Slovenian inventor Baron Anton Codelli. Together with filmmaker and adventurer Hans Schomburgk he filmed in Togo in 1914 the first live-action film in Africa, which possibly inspired James Rice Burroughs for his novel on Tarzan. In the company of three Codelli’s descendants and actor Primož Bezjak, we traced the fate of Codelli’s film, brought the remains from Togo and Berlin to Ljubljana and used the Green Screen technology to bring to life 15 live-action scenes based on 600 Codelli’s museum photographs.

Mama je ena sama

Tatjana in Motherland is a partly animated documentary essay about Slovenia and its men. It is a “documentary-tale” of how Slovenian society has been disintegrating in an invisible way. The story will unveil a Slovenian Oedipus archetype of the possessive martyr mother type and her relationship with her son, in which she through emotional manipulation, by constantly creating feelings of guilt, burdens her son to such a degree, that he remains dependent on her for the rest of his life. In order to put this relationship to its best use, all Slovenian governing structures have elevated mother figure on the level of a saint and have assigned to it the cultish role. The result of the Slovenian maternal cult is a typical Slovene male, who is pathologically obsessed with his mother.

Eiffel, la guerre des tours

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.

Benninger

アントニー・ガウディー

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.

Peter Eisenman: Building Germany's Holocaust Memorial

This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.

Mies

No understanding of the modern movement in architecture is possible without knowledge of its master builder, Mies van der Rohe. Together with documentation of his life, this film shows all his major buildings, as well as rare film footage of Mies explaining his philosophy. Phyllis Lambert relates her choice of Mies as the architect for the Seagram building. Mies's achievements and continuing influence are debated by architects Robert A.M. Stern, Robert Venturi, and Philip Johnson, by former students and by architectural historians. Mies is seen in rare documentary footage.

Zaha Hadid... Who Dares Wins

Alan Yentob profiles the most successful female architect there has ever been, the late Zaha Hadid, who designed buildings around the globe from Austria to Azerbaijan.

Bojevita kraljica noči

Stunning stories from the unusual life of the Ural owl, a mysterious nocturnal predator that can fearlessly attack even humans. Set over a period of just over a year, 'Fearless Queen of the Night' provides an extraordinary insight into the life of one of the largest European owl species.

Ely Kahn: New York City's Mastermind

A look at the legendary architect Ely Jacques Kahn, designer of over 60 skyscrapers that helped create the iconic Manhattan skyline.