The festival "Film and Architecture" is starting

Circle and the Prague Cinema Aero have prepared the festival Film and Architecture from October 20 to 22, 2006. It aims to capture architecture from multiple perspectives – both documentary and fictional films will be presented. The selection of films is a sort of subjective reflection on everything that can be covered by the title "Film and Architecture."
Documents about contemporary architects and buildings are represented by films about Peter Märkli, about the construction of the Schaulager building by Herzog & de Meuron, about Rem Koolhaas and his view of the African city of Lagos (Lagos/Koolhaas), about modern Japanese architecture (Kochuu), or about the iconic London skyscraper by Norman Foster (Building the Gherkin).
Fiction films include those in which architecture plays a fundamental role not only as a set design but, in many cases, even as one of the characters – e.g. The Cremator set in the Janák's rondo-cubist crematorium in Pardubice or Playtime by Jacques Tati featuring his own designs and architectural models – as well as films where an architect plays the main role.
Both fictional and documentary works will be presented in the “City/Berlin” section, which will showcase the German metropolis from different perspectives in various times. The everyday life of the city in the 1920s is captured in Walter Ruttmann's film Berlin, Symphony of a Great City. In the poetic documentary Berlin Beirut, we traverse two cities that were historically divided and destroyed. The documentary Berlin Babylon focuses on the construction of the city center of unified Berlin set to the music of Einstürzende Neubauten.
Another smaller section features avant-garde films, such as Hackenschmied's film At Prague Castle or the experimental film Man with a Movie Camera accompanied by contemporary music.
These sections are interspersed with short films, grotesques, music videos, and animated films about architecture. The entire festival will be complemented by a lecture from architecture theorist and historian Vladimír Czumal on architecture in film and an exhibition of architectural photographs by Andrea Lhotáková in the cinema's foyer.

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Kochuu: Japanese architecture / Influence & Origin
Directed by: Jesper Wachmeister
2003, 52 min
A documentary about modern Japanese architecture (Tadao Ando, Kisho Kurokawa, Toyo Ito, Kazuo Shinohara), its roots, and its influences on Scandinavian architecture (Sverre Fehn, Kristian Gullichsen, Juhani Pallasmaa). "Kochuu" means "in a jar" in Japanese and refers to the Japanese tradition of building small, enclosed spaces.
 
Playtime
Directed by: Jacques Tati
1967, 113 min
A feature film about the adventures of Monsieur Hulot, who grapples with the traps of civilizational progress – modern architecture and the human crowd. A poetic premonition of the modern world. A landmark in the symbiosis of architecture and film, set in the "scenery" city-vision of Tativille, which the director designed himself.   
 
Fobia
Directed by: Michal Nohejl
2006, 20 min
A peaceful Sunday morning spent by the Straka couple in their home is disturbed by an unexpected visitor who interprets an unusual wish. The house and adjoining garden become the setting for a shared experience, after which a slight disturbance remains before it is completely forgotten.
A certain well-known Czech architect plays the role of the driver in a graduate film from FAMU.
 
The Towering Inferno / Skleněné peklo
Directed by: John Guillermin, Irwin Allen
1974, 165 min
What can happen when an architect neglects fire safety regulations? Paul Newman in a feature film as a self-examining architect of a burning skyscraper.

About Los Angeles Plays Itself
Directed by: Thom Andersen
2003, 169 min
The architecture of Los Angeles through the eyes of Hollywood filmmakers. Excerpts from films that significantly contributed to the theme of architecture in film. Films that did not fit into our festival program can be found while watching this documentary.
 
Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt / Berlin, Symphony of a Great City
Directed by: Walter Ruttmann
1927, 65 min
One day in a city. A black-and-white documentary symphony capturing the pulsating rhythm of Berlin – its streets, machines, and inhabitants – which still serves as a model of the so-called cross-section film, that had many followers in the decades that followed.
 
Berlin Beirut
Directed by: Myrna Maakaron
2003, 23 min
“Beirut has six letters, Berlin also has six letters.” Both Berlin and Beirut were occupied, destroyed, reconstructed in the past, and their inhabitants still say “west and east.” A documentary in which the differences between the two cities are erased gains new urgency in the current political situation. A personal testimony from a Beirut native living in Berlin.
 
Erection
Directed by: John Lennon, Yoko Ono
1971, 20 min
The video art piece Erection has nothing to do with Lennon's penis (unlike another film by Lennon and Yoko Ono, Self-Portrait) but follows the "erection" of a building. The camera captures the development of the International Hotel in London from the same spot for eighteen months.
 
Berlin Babylon
Directed by: Hubertus Siegert
2001, 88 min
A documentary about healing Berlin's urban wounds after the fall of the Berlin Wall. How can a new city center be built? The main protagonists are great figures of contemporary architecture: Axel Schultes, Renzo Piano, Josef P. Kleihues, Rem Koolhaas... With congenial musical accompaniment from Einstürzende Neubauten.

Lola rennt / Lola runs
Directed by: Tom Tykwer
1998, 81 min
Berlin. Present day. A summer day in which minutes decide about love, life, and death. Can the girl gather a large sum of money in a short time to save her boyfriend? And does she even notice the architectural gems of Berlin she passes by? Probably not, but you can!
 

Lagos/Koolhaas
Directed by: Brentje van der Haak
2002, 55 min
With an estimated population of 14 million, Lagos is one of the fastest-growing cities on the African continent, expected to be the third-largest city in the world by 2020. One of the most significant contemporary architects, Rem Koolhaas, fascinated by the inner energy of Lagos, seeks to understand modernity in all its aspects through the example of the uncontrollably expanding urbanism of the city. The documentary captures Koolhaas during his two-year "research" in Lagos.
 

Fountainhead
Directed by: King Vidor
1949, 114 min
The individualistic and idealistic architect Howard Roark is expelled from college because his designs do not conform to mainstream architectural thinking. How to maintain artistic integrity in all circumstances? The feature film, based on the novel of the same name, is loosely inspired by the life of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Schaulager
The elite architectural duo Herzog & de Meuron discusses the construction of the "art storage" Schaulager in Basel. The documentary was made on the occasion of the "schaulager" comprehensive exhibition of these architects.
 
At Prague Castle
Directed by: Alexander Hackenschmied
1932, 11 min
A fundamental black-and-white montage composition by avant-garde photographer and filmmaker Hackenschmied presents moving shots of the monumental forms of Gothic architecture of St. Vitus Cathedral in Hradčany organically connected with music.
 
Dear Master. Josip Plečnik – Architect of Prague Castle
Directed by: Pavel Koutecký
1996, 60 min
A film documentary essay about the prominent European architect Josip Plečnik confronts his original and rich work in Prague and his native Slovenia. However, the film is not only about architecture but also about Plečnik as a person and his relationships with T. G. Masaryk and his daughter Alice. 
 
Bridge / De Brug
Directed by: Joris Ivens
1928, 11 min
Under normal circumstances, a drawbridge in Rotterdam appears as a very static object, but Joris Ivens managed to film a very dynamic film poem about it. “The bridge is a laboratory of movements, shades of colors, forms, contrasts, rhythms, and the relationships between all these phenomena,” said the director, the avant-garde Dutch filmmaker, about his film. Even at the time of its creation, the film was considered a masterpiece.

Man with a Movie Camera / Čelověk s kinoapparatom
Directed by: Dziga Vertov
1929, 80 min
The city and man are in dynamic motion, but only the "eye" of the camera can capture them in nonchalance. A classic of Soviet avant-garde cinema from the 1920s, accompanied by compelling contemporary music from Cinematic Orchestra, which shifts the film into different temporal contexts.
 

Pôeme électronique
Directed by: Le Corbusier, Edgard Varese
1958, 8 min
An eight-minute representative excerpt from the multimedia show prepared by architect Le Corbusier and the father of electronic music Edgard Varese for the World Exhibition EXPO 58 in Brussels. The film collage also features Le Corbusier's groundbreaking collective dwelling Unité d’Habitation in Marseille.
 
Panelstory or How Neighborhoods are Created
Directed by: Věra Chytilová
1979, 96 min
Film satire by Věra Chytilová set in a muddy urban neighborhood of the 1970s. A feature film with passages documenting the time about interpersonal relationships and the daily challenges of resettling Prague's South City.

11 Floors of an Ideal
Directed by: Andrea Prenghyová
2002, 58 min
A sadly humorous documentary about the past and present of the Collective House in Litvínov. How do its current residents view this modernist experiment of a vertical city?
 
Building the Gherkin
Directed by: Mirjam von Arx
2006, 89 min
On September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York, and just a month and a day later, construction began for a new high-rise building (the so-called "Cucumber") by architect Norman Foster on a site that had been bombed during World War II in London. Is it appropriate to build new iconic skyscrapers in this time? Can a single building influence an architect's career, corporate image, and the shape of an entire city?
 
Contempt / Le Mépris
Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard
1963, 103 min
A psychological drama based on the novel by Alberto Moravia starring Brigitte Bardot. Significant "new wave" director Jean-Luc Godard integrates complex color symbolism and specific architectural language in the villa of writer Curzio Malaparte on Capri by architect Alberto Libera. The Malaparte villa becomes a silent companion to the disintegration of a marriage.

The Cremator
Directed by: Juraj Herz
1968, 95 min
“Live modernly, die modernly!” was the slogan of proponents of cremation and the construction of crematoria. The Pardubice rondo-cubist crematorium designed by Pavel Janák, where the film is set, still refers to the old Slavic tradition of cremation. However, all noble ideas transform in the mind of Mr. Kopfrkingl, soaked in Nazi delirium, to unrecognizability.
 
Architectour de Suisse
2005, approx. 15 min
A series of short documentaries that return to the lecture series of KRUH "Across Swiss Architecture," summarize it, and place Swiss creation in further contexts.
Architects like Peter Märkli, Miroslav Šik, Luigi Snozzi, or Roger Diener speak about a specific building they designed and their views on architectural creation. 

PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.KRUH.INFO AND WWW.KINOAERO.CZ OR IN A SEPARATELY ISSUED FESTIVAL CATALOG.