Palace for the People

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."

The construction of the Obelisco in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A short documentary on the fabulous courthouse building in Brussels from the architect Joseph Poelaert, temporarily a house of dreams structured in 26 bits, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, from A-Z.

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.

Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.

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

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.

De Gaulle bâtisseur

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.

A history of Bucharest, as seen in the light of the totalitarian architecture, having as leading idea the reality that the Power always exposes its purposes through architecture. After five decades of communism, the reality on thee Dark Ages is still waiting to be revealed, and architecture is one of the most obvious embodiments of the ideology to whom it was builtÉ It is not a movie about faults or about guilty peoples, but about official edifices of thee communist Romania and their story.

Inside Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Urban architecture as seen through the eyes of four female veterans in the field.

This documentary follows 200 days in the life of contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto— a leading presence in the world of modern art. He is the winner of many prestigious awards and his photographs are sold for millions of yen at overseas auctions. The film shows the sites of the Architecture series shot in southern France, the huge installation art work at 17th Biennale of Sydney, his new work Mathematics at Provence, his art studio while working on Lightning Fields, and more. It thoroughly pursues the question Sugimoto's works pose - "living in modern times, what are these works trying to tell us?" A thrilling look into the world of Hiroshi Sugimoto.

An account of the life and work of Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-86) in his own words: his memories, his vision of art and his reflections on the fate of the artist and the meaning of human existence; through extremely rare audio recordings that allow a complete understanding of his inner life and the mysterious world existing behind his complex cinematic imagery.

In 1959, a government employee named Richard Oyler, living in the tiny desert town of Lone Pine, California, asked world-famous modern architect Richard Neutra to design his modest family home. To Oyler's surprise, Neutra agreed. Thus began an unlikely friendship that led to the design and construction of an iconic mid-century modern masterpiece.

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

In Barcelona, the Casa Batlló alone sums up the genius of Antoni Gaudí. During the exhibition devoted to it by the Musée d'Orsay, we take a guided tour of this eccentric, colorful residence, completed in 1906.

One billion people on our planet—one in six—live in shantytowns, slums or squats. Slums: Cities of Tomorrow challenges conventional thinking to propose that slums are in fact the solution, not the problem, to urban overcrowding caused by the massive migration of people to cities. (Lynne Fernie, HotDocs)

One week in the extraordinary-ordinary life of Mr. Moriyama, a Japanese art, architecture and music enlighted amateur who lives in one of the most famous contemporary Japanese architecture, the Moriyama house, built in Tokyo in 2005 by Pritzker-prize winner Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA). Introduced in the intimacy of this experimental microcosm which redefines completely the common sense of domestic life, Ila Bêka recounts in a very spontaneous and personal way the unique personality of the owner: a urban hermit living in a small archipelago of peace and contemplation in the heart of Tokyo. From noise music to experimental movies, the film let us enter into the ramification of the Mr. Moriyama's free spirit. Moriyama-San, the first film about noise music, acrobatic reading, silent movies, fireworks and Japanese architecture!

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