Maestro Plecnik

A modern explorer leads us on a global journey to discover how nine of the world's greatest architects are shaping our future.

Aalto is one of the greatest names in modern architecture and design, Aino and Alvar Aalto gave their signature to iconic Scandic design. The first cinematic portrait of their life love story is an enchanting journey of their creations and influence around the world.

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.

Postwar life of eight remaining inhabitants of Strmec, a village located in the very corner of Slovenian Alps near Italian border. When local partisans killed a German officer, the Nazi occupiers shot all males in the village as an act of revenge; those who remained are seven women of different age who traditionally wear black scarves, and young boy who hasn't any friends to play with.

A documentary essay film about coincidences, shattered lives and posthumous fame. A found footage family film about love and passion, friendship and heartbreak in Berlin between the wars. But ​a film ​also about self-sufficiency and recycling​, about the green movement and the environment​ – before these ​notion​s had yet been properly invented. And it ​touches​ the utopian potential of ideas that have lain buried in the ground of an island for the past 70 years. The film’s protagonist, Martin Elsaesser, was one of the most prominent modernist architects of Weimar Germany.

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.

Tadao Ando, a self-taught architect, proposes an international architecture that he believes can only be conceived by someone Japanese. His architecture mixes Piranesian drama with contemplative spaces in urban complexes, residences and chapels. This film presents the formative years of his impressive career before he embarked on projects in Europe and the United States.

The British architect based in Stockholm looks back on major projects of a long career inspired by European Modernism combined with his personal sensitivity to nature and community. Erskine is especially valued for his vital understanding of social interaction, exemplified in commissions for universities and housing complexes built from Scandinavia to Italy. The architect takes the camera on a tour of his buildings while offering revealing comments and interpretations.

Drahý mistře

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.

A historical documentary documenting the rise, function, and abandonment of a 17 story building that once housed The Rochester Psychiatric Center. This film tells the story of the building through historical footage, interviews of former staff and patients who recount their memories of the behemoth facility while also exploring the abandoned building as it is today.

The documentary visually presents the very diverse fauna and flora of Slovenia, focusing on mammals and birds, and shows some particularly interesting species of amphibians, fish, insects and plants. It takes place over a period of one year and takes the viewer through typical Slovenian landscapes. The plot crosses between the provinces and occasionally returns to the same area in order to show what is happening in the animal world in the second part of the year. A very rich ecosystem diversity, rarely seen recordings, and scientifically verified information weaved into the intelligible text are key attributes of this film.

In the aftermath of the fire that struck Notre-Dame de Paris in 2019, the cathedral is in danger of collapsing. A race against time begins for a hundred men and women who will face danger, the unknown, and toxic lead dust for a year to save this world heritage site. Architects, stonemasons, carpenters, crane operators, scaffolders, rope access technicians, archaeologists: this unique project brings together rare skills. With rare enthusiasm and cohesion, they will achieve numerous technical and human feats. This film recounts the spectacular and moving adventure of these builders fighting to save Notre Dame.

A personal and political biography of the Octopus, or the Prague National Library project, but also a biography of the last years of the life of the author of this design, Jan Kaplický, who wrote in his diary in 1998: to win the competition and have one love. With this entry, read by Eliška Kaplicky at the beginning of the film, it is as if the world-class Czech architect wrote not only the "script" for the final decade of his life, but also for a film that follows the dramatic social story of creative imagination and the intimate relationship between a man and a woman.

Laibach is a Slovenian avant-garde music group associated with industrial, martial, and neo-classical musical styles. They formed on June 1, 1980 in Trbovlje, Slovenia (then Yugoslavia). Laibach represents the music wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) art collective, of which it was a founding member in 1984. The name "Laibach" is the German name for Slovenia's capital city, Ljubljana.

The sights and sounds of the big game between Maribor and Olimpija. Stadium audience often reacts deliriously regardless of the player’s success on the field.

'Magical Imperfection' tells the inspirational story of world-renowned Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama. Imprisoned in his own country during the 1940s because of his race, Ray found the strength to combat injustice by devoting his career to social justice and equality.

Through a blend of Japanese history and Western influence, Arata Isozaki has built a career around his boldly distinctive architectural style. Constantly challenging the concepts of space, form and tradition, Isozaki’s work dares us to imagine a merging of cultures where artistic movements and methods bind together in riveting new forms. "ARATA ISOZAKI II: INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS" follows the architect to many of his most famous sites including the Barcelona Olympic Sports Palace, Disney’s Team Building in Orlando, New York’s Palladium nightclub, as well as the newly completed Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

In 1914, the Czech architect Jan Letzel designed in the Japanese city of Hiroshima Center for the World Expo, which has turned into ruins after the atomic bombing in August 1945. “Atomic Dome” – all that remains of the destroyed palace of the exhibition – has become part of the Hiroshima memorial. In 2007, French sculptor, painter and film director Jean-Gabriel Périot assembled this cinematic collage from hundreds of multi-format, color and black and white photographs of different years’ of “Genbaku Dome”.

Arata Isozaki: Early Work in Japan takes a detailed look at the architect's pieces, exploring applauded projects such as the EXPO '70 Osaka Festival Plaza, Gunma Prefectural Museum of Modern Art and Kitakyushu Municipal Library. The extraordinary series of architectural breakthroughs made during this time contributed significantly to the evolution of contemporary architecture worldwide, and eventually gained him his first foreign commission