Ekodomy aneb Život v rovnováze

Phillis Wheatley Elementary School was a significant landmark in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, serving as an important educational institution for African-American students for nearly half a century. The school was known for its innovative modern design that was unique to the region, reflecting the area’s cultural and historical roots. However, the school sustained significant damage during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in 2005. Despite the damage, the school’s unique design caught the attention of DOCOMOMO Louisiana, an organization dedicated to preserving modern architecture. They advocated for the restoration of the school through adaptive reuse, citing its historical significance and architectural importance. The organization produced this short film, “A Plea for Modernism,” narrated by actor Wendell Pierce, to raise awareness of the school’s cultural and historical value and promote its restoration.

How can structures, which take up defined, rigid portions of space, make us feel transcendence? How can chapels turn into places of introspection? How can walls grant boundless freedom? Driven by intense childhood impressions, director Christoph Schaub visits extraordinary churches, both ancient and futuristic, and discovers works of art that take him up to the skies and all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. With the help of architects Peter Zumthor, Peter Märkli, and Álvaro Siza Vieira, artists James Turrell and Cristina Iglesias, and drummer Sergé “Jojo” Mayer, he tries to make sense of the world and decipher our spiritual experiences using the seemingly abstract concepts of light, time, rhythm, sound, and shape. The superb cinematography turns this contemplative search into a multi-sensory experience.

Jaime Lerner - Uma História de Sonhos

A 1996 Dutch documentary film about the Western European architects who were invited by the Soviet Union to construct “Socialist cities” in Siberia during the late 1920s and early 30s. The film draws on interviews of some of the last survivors of this time, including Jan Rutgers (of the Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial Colony), Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (of the Ernst May group), and Philipp Tolziner (of the “Bauhaus Brigade”), and on letters, articles, and lectures written by those who have already died, including Hans Schmidt, Mart Stam, Johannes van Loghem, and Ernst May. It also follows the daily lives of contemporary residents of Magnitogorsk, Orsk, Novokuznetsk, and Kemerovo.

We all come from houses in which we live, dream, love and die. This long-term documentary project explores the significance of architecture in our everyday lives and takes its audience on a journey to the most impressive places designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.

In the midst of the chaos of México City, a group of eight bachelor millennials who call themselves ´The Hermits´, open the doors to their tiny apartments in the historic Ermita Building, in the yet-to-be gentrified neighborhood of Tacubaya, and share their life experiences in a time when precarity changes the way in which we love, feel and relate to each other. As we explore the homes of these eight neighbors, we also witness their personalities intersect in a Whatsapp chat, a virtual space that functions as a supporting system that helps them face the adversities that living alone in this city brings.

Efrain, known as the Reaper, has worked at a slaughterhouse for 25 years. We will discover his deep relationship with death and his struggle to live.

What motivates people to organize communal living themselves? What ideals are behind it, how do they finance themselves, and how does life in a community work? Based on six self-managed residential buildings in Austria from the past 40 years, the documentary film "Der Stoff, aus dem Träume sind" (The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of) sets out to find answers. Filmmakers Lotte Schreiber and Michael Rieper tell these six stories by staying very close to the protagonists.

David Attenborough narrates this close up look at these tiny pollinators captured in flight as never before. Acrobats of the air - flying jewels - iridescent partners of countless plants: hummingbirds are amongst the most remarkable creatures on our planet.

Architecture in Beirut was the second greatest victim of the civil war, with pages of ancient and modern history erased by the end of the conflict. This documentary interviews citizens calling for a reconstruction plan that would preserve Beirut’s spirit of culture and openness.

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.

Funkiskungen

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.

A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight, traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes—in moments private and public, funny and poignant—as he pursues the empowering notion that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.

Sixty years ago, the Canary Islands were the first in Europe to adopt desalination of ocean water to produce drinking water. Often considered a miracle solution, is this technique compatible with sustainable development?

Follows the story of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in his attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

In 1967, de Andrade was invited by the Italian company Olivetti to produce a documentary on the new Brazilian capital city of Brasília. Constructed during the latter half of the 1950s and founded in 1960, the city was part of an effort to populate Brazil’s vast interior region and was to be the embodiment of democratic urban planning, free from the class divisions and inequalities that characterize so many metropolises. Unsurprisingly, Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova (Brasília, Contradictions of a New City, 1968) revealed Brasília to be utopic only for the wealthy, replicating the same social problems present in every Brazilian city. (Senses of Cinema)

Rejecting the natural comforts of city life, young sociologist and researcher Elgars Felcis has moved with his family to the countryside, where he has established one of Latvia's few eco-communities. The goal of the community members is to become self-sufficient and live in harmony with the surrounding environment. The film portrays Elgars' daily life – farming and working on academic papers and lectures.

50 years after the realization of their utopias, three old architects take the director on a journey to discover extraordinary housing. A joyful journey through time, from which emerges a crucial question: how will we live tomorrow?

Poème Électronique is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The Philips corporation commissioned Le Corbusier to design the pavilion, which was intended as a showcase of their engineering progress. The pavilion was shaped like a stomach, with a narrow entrance and exit on either side of a large central space. As the audience entered and exited the pavilion, the electronic composition Concret PH by Iannis Xenakis (who also acted as Le Corbusier's architectural assistant for the pavilion's design) was heard. Poème électronique was synchronized to a film of black and white photographs selected by Le Corbusier which touched on vague themes of human existence.