No one fights to preserve a multiplex, but some people will risk everything to save a marquee...
Through booms and busts, Delft Theatres and its innovative gem The Nordic endured in Marquette, Michigan for almost 100 years. Bernie Rosendahl’s crusade to restore the historic arthouse to its former glory reveals a hidden cinema empire in the Upper Peninsula.
Bernie Rosendahl
Michael Meredith Hare
Paul Rogers
16 Apr 2015
Through the unrelenting winter in the north of Japan, a small group of workers must brave unusual working conditions to bring to life a 2,000-year-old tradition known as sake. A cinematic documentary, The Birth of Sake is a visually immersive experience of an almost-secret world in which large sacrifices must be made for the survival of a time-honored brew.
09 Feb 2001
Famed Swiss architect and artist Robert Maillart was renowned for his concrete bridges; this documentary examines the elegant design of his engineering masterpieces, which, the film argues, embrace both functionality and aesthetics. Instead of following a traditional journalistic structure, director Heinz Emigholz's spellbinding film reads more like ethereal visual poetry, allowing the beauty of Maillart's work to speak for itself.
17 Nov 2002
Beavers shot The Hedge Theatre in Rome in the 1980s. It is an intimate film inspired by the Baroque architecture and stone carvings of Francesco Borromini and St. Martin and the Beggar, a painting by the Sienese painter Il Sassetta. Beavers’ montage contrasts the sensuous softness of winter light with the lush green growth brought by spring rains. Each shot and each source of sound is steeped in meaning and placed within the film’s structure with exacting skill to build a poetic relationship between image and sound.
31 May 2014
Tracing the history of blue jeans around the globe.
18 Nov 2011
Interviews with the junior designers swept into the 24-7 world of "The Eamery" are the heart of this complex picture of a husband-and-wife creative team that define the era of Mid-Century Modernism. Narrated by James Franco, the film draws from a trove of archival material, primarily the stunning films and photographs produced in mind-boggling volume by Charles, Ray, and their staff during the hyper-creative forty years of the Eames Office.
13 Oct 1989
Featuring never-before-seen film footage of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, The Architecture of Doom captures the inner workings of the Third Reich and illuminates the Nazi aesthetic in art, architecture and popular culture. From Nazi party rallies to the final days inside Hitler's bunker, this sensational film shows how Adolf Hitler rose from being a failed artist to creating a world of ponderous kitsch and horrifying terror. Hitler worshipped ancient Rome and Greece, and dreamed of a new Golden Age of classical art and monumental architecture, populated by beautiful, patriotic Aryans. Degenerated artists and inferior races had no place in his lurid fantasy. As this riveting film shows, the Nazis went from banning the art of modernists like Picasso to forced euthanasia of the retarded and sick, and finally to the persecution of homosexuals and the extermination of the Jews.
22 Jan 2014
The film juxtaposes/compares two museums: The Museum of Art, Ein Harod, Israel, which Samuel Bickels (1909-1975) built there in 1948, and The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, built by Renzo Piano (b. 1937) 1986 . The method of natural lighting in Bickels‘s construction was the direct model for Piano, who adopted for his construction at the request of its patroness Dominique de Menil.
22 Sep 2019
This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.
08 Nov 1981
Today it's a symbol of strength and vitality. 135 years ago, it was a source of controversy. This documentary examines the great problems and ingenious solutions that marked the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. From conception to construction, it traces the bridge's transformation from a spectacular feat of heroic engineering to an honored symbol in American culture.
13 Sep 2024
No overview found
25 Jun 2015
The documentary rebuilds the life of the Brazilian architect João Batista Vilanova Artigas. His relatives, friends, students and six of his major works tell the history of this iconic Latin-American modernist.
03 Jun 1994
A psycho-geographic journey through London and its history, as undertaken by an unseen narrator and his companion, Robinson, at the time of the 1992 general election.
10 May 2005
Can a single building impact the career of an architect, the image of a global company and even the skyline of a big city? Just a month and a day after the disastrous attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the first steel beam of a new tower is erected in London. One question is on everybody’s mind: is it the right decision to build a new iconic tower in the midst of London’s financial district, on a site that has already been bombed before? The 40-storey steel and glass tower sparks further controversy. Norman Foster, one of Britain’s most visionary architects, calls his design for the new Swiss Re London headquarters ‘radial – socially, technically, architecturally and spatially’. In fact, its size and shape are so radical that it is almost immediately nicknamed ‘the erotic gherkin’. Will the Gherkin become the landmark they all dream of?
01 Oct 2017
Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect is a feature documentary film that considers many of the key architectural questions through the 70 year career of Pritzker Prize winning Irish-American architect Kevin Roche, including the relationship between architects and the public they serve. Still working at age 94, Kevin Roche is an enigma, a man with no interest in fame who refuses retirement and continually looks to the future regardless of age. Roche's architectural philosophy is that 'the responsibility of the modern architect is to create a community for a modern society' and has emphasised the importance for peoples well-being to bring nature into the buildings they inhabit. We consider the application of this philosophy in acclaimed buildings such as the Ford Foundation, Oakland Museum and at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art for whom Kevin Roche was their principal architect for over 40 years.
04 Sep 2020
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.
05 Oct 2024
The childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and playground for her daughter Elizabeth, the future queen, is one of the oldest royal residences in Britain. This pink-painted fairy-tale fortress has been the family home to the Lyons, one of Britain's oldest aristocratic families. Experts including Paul Burrell and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen reveal the secrets of a house that helped shape the world views and personal convictions of Elizabeth II and her mother.
05 Jan 2024
This feature-length big screen documentary tells the riotous inside story of the infamous sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll repertory cinema which inspired a generation during Britain's turbulent Thatcher years.
03 Oct 2010
Built in 1942 by a maverick film preservationist, this small Los Angeles theater championed silent film at the very moment when the Hollywood studios across town were busily destroying their nitrate inventories. With hard chairs, phonograph-record accompaniments, and mostly original vintage prints, the dingy mom-and-pop operation was nonetheless a palace to the fanatical few who became its loyal audience.
20 Jan 2012
Destroyed in a dramatic and highly-publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure amongst architects, politicians and policy makers. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which they resided, while tracing the personal and poignant narratives of several of the project's residents. In the post-War years, the American city changed in ways that made it unrecognizable from a generation earlier, privileging some and leaving others in its wake. The next time the city changes, remember Pruitt-Igoe.
06 Nov 2023
Behind the iconic Eiffel Tower lies the story of an incredible challenge to erect a thousand-foot tower that went far beyond a design competition, and marked a major turning point in engineering history. It was the beginning of radical transformation where iron was pitted against stone, engineering against architecture, and modern design against ancients. Press campaigns, lobbying, public conferences, denigration of opposing projects, bragging about big names - all participants engaged in a fierce battle without concession. Using 3D recreations, official sources (reports, letters, drawings...) and intimate archives obtained from their descendants, this film will bring to life this vertical race through a fresh and visual way to mark the centenary of Eiffel death.