The top 5 architecture documentaries of 2018. All from Copenhagen
Cinema as an inclusive tool for people searching for their identities. 5 documentaries presented at Copenhagen International Documentary Festival
Architecture documentaries have never been blockbusters. Yet architects look at movies with a different perspective, especially at documentaries.
To find more about it, you should have visited Copenhagen International Documentary Festival, one of the world’s most important events in documentary cinema.
Although this genre is not always getting the attention it deserves and it is rarely shown in cinemas, the previews open to the public were many.
Productions covered a wide range of topics, from costumes to young promises during first experiences to masters like Abel Ferrara.
Many of the films were about architecture and design: here are the top five documentaries presented at Copenhagen International Documentary Festival.
Ex Libris - The New York Public Library
In more than three hours, the famous movie director Frederik Wiseman prepared his very own act of love to New York City Public Library.
Through daily work and chats with exceptional characters such as Patti Smith, the library emerges as the vessel of civil and cultural thought before that of conservation and memory. As this location is so important for society it needs to be designed in the most inclusive and democratic way.
Tarpaulins
What happens when a house gets invaded by termites? It gets covered with a colourful cloth for disinfestation. No, this is not a scene from Breaking Bad, but an architecture documentary by Lisa Truttmann.
This film doesn’t simply want to show the different phases of the process, it is a 360-degrees reflection on the relationship between architecture and the environment.
Central Airport THF
Karim Aïnouz’s film is about a rarely-discussed topic concerning German immigration.
Berlin’s first central airport, THF, built in 1923, was surrounded by a park appreciated by residents and tourists alike. Abandoned for a long time, it has been converted into a temporary shelter for 3,000 refugees.
A moving microcosm made of hope and acceptance, built from a non-place that should inspire the rest of the world.
Extinction
Portuguese artist Salomé Lamas visited the territories of the former Soviet Union in Moldova, where nowadays there is still a State not recognised by the international community, Transnistria.
We are officially in Moldova, where we followed the young Kolya in a ghost state with undefined borders dotted with crumbling monuments from the communist regime, filmed in a dramatic black and white.
Piazza Vittorio
Piazza Vittorio in Rome is considered by some as a symbolic location of the current state of decline lived by the Italian capital. Abel Ferrara and Willem Defoe took a closed look.
By meeting with the people hanging out in the square, we see a variegated, multi-cultural and tolerant environment full of issues but with the strength necessary to react.
Opening Photo: FRAME FROM TARPAULINS BY LISA TRUTTMANN
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