The 2020 edition figures:
Living Together Again - Architecture Short Film Competition
The competition was a success both for the number and the quality of the submissions:
- Almost 300 short films submitted for the competition
- 20 semi finalist short films have been selected and featured in two locations for five days
- 5 finalist short films have been featured at the Marinaressa Gardens
- Over 1000 people attended to the projections
Spotlight on Bêka & Lemoine
The Festival featured every day five different films by the internationally acclaimed film makers Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine:
- Koolhaas Houselife
- Barbicania
- Infinite Happiness
- Homo Urbanus Shanghaianus
- Moriyama-San
Spotlight on Bêka & Lemoine
The Festival featured every day five different films by the internationally acclaimed film makers Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine:
- Koolhaas Houselife
- Barbicania
- Infinite Happiness
- Homo Urbanus Shanghaianus
- Moriyama-San
Out of Competition
The Venice Architecture Short Film Festival presents the Out of Competition section featuring:
Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival
Director: Alessandra Galletta
lagalla23.com
Director: Paul Clemence and Axel Stasny
paulclemence.com | axelstasny.com
Planet Netherlands
Directors, producers, film makers and journalists spent time netweorking together and enjoying sunsets at the Marinaressa Garden, before the projection.
Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine
Director Stefano Santamato, Paolo Soravia - The Blink Fish - producer & Anastasia Kucherova - Stefano Boeri Architetti, receive the first prize
Troiane
Troiane
The Finalist Short Films
The Competition Jury was composed by:
- Marco Burrascano – Professor, Università Roma 3
- Viviana Carlet – Director, Lago Film Festival
- Francesca Feder – Producer
- Alessandra Galletta – Director and producer
- Nicola Picco – President of Venice Architects Association Foundation
Troiane
Competition Winner
In one single night, in October 2018, rain and wind tore down 14 million trees, transforming a lush mountain landscape in northern Italy into an apocalyptic ground, with environmental consequences that will affect life in the area for many a decades to come. In Carnia, one of the worst hit areas, 400 of those trunks were retrieved, and from there travelled to Syracuse, opposite end of Italy, where on theGreek theater stage they gained a last role, as mute witnesses of both tragedies.The film tells their journey as if through their own eyes, along 1500 Km and across a variety of landscapes, colors and sounds.
Duration: 00:16:14
Producer: Paolo Soravia - The Blink Fish
Distribution: Premiere Film
A project by Stefano Boeri Architetti
Ferragosto
Second Selected Film
Ferragosto is a short film on architecture and urban development taking place in Noumea (New-Caledonia). Driven by the word of Italo Calvino and the music of the movie Il Sorpasso, we journey through the empty streets and the seventies buildings of this tropical capital. Just like the ferragosto, the city is emptied but this time, it's because of the vote for the independence of our pacific island.
Duration: 00:03:05 By Alexandre Erre
Liquid City
Third Selected Film
Liquid City is a love letter to the process and products of thoughtful intervention in the built-environment, as well as to the city, people, and larger context in which we work, live, play and operate. Every process or structure we create is temporary, evolving and refining infinitely over time. Liquid City is a meditation on architecture as an examination of, and response to, contemporary culture, as well as a celebration of the liquidity of new ideas and approaches to design and construction, and the maddening challenges, shifting trends and requirements, and inspiring opportunities that drive us to create.The film looks beyond the finished product and takes a more contemplative look at the details; interacting with the process and elements that make up the whole which we so often overlook. In this way, the film offers a rare and much-needed glimpse into the soul, not just of a building, but of the architect.
Duration: 00:16:00 By Christian Williams, Brian Cassin
Ode to LA
Fourth Selected Film
Where the microcosm meets the macrocosm ... In this video poem, I explore the repercussions of the external COVID-19 epidemic on peoples' private worlds in London, UK in the form of video recordings of one particular subject. In parallel, the hypnotic beat of this video art piece commemorates the amalgam of disparate memories, which I associate with every area of the eclectic city of Los Angeles. Ultimately, dance is a medium for liberating myself from the chains of attachment, nostalgia and existential angst. The vibrant fragments of absurd details of the LA celebrate the notion of visual pleasure from a female perspective as explored in Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual and Other Pleasures", 'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.' The haunting circular rhythmic and visual structure of this piece likewise pays homage to the theory of Écriture féminine, whereby memory is re-enacted in a fragmented, repetitive and disjointed fashion in line with my everyday stream-of-consciousness process rather than linear, phallocentric fashion in an attempt to my own voice in the realm of video art. As stated by the Écriture féminine theorist, Hélène Cixous in her essay "The Laugh of the Medusa", 'I, too, overflow; ... my body knows unheard-of songs.' For more information, visit: imdb.com
Duration: 00:07:28 By Katya Kan
Adana: On The Bridge
Fifth Selected Film
Çatalan Bridge was established in the same period with Çatalan Dam, which was constructed to meet the drinking water needs of Adana, with the purpose of transporting the water provided from the dam. It was Turkey’s longest bridge in 2002 and over the years the bridge has become a public space that people cannot live without. The documentary that seeks for the place of the bridge in daily life, the people's practices of using the bridge and their thoughts about the city, in times when individual life practices are dominant, asks by referring to the heterogeneous structure of the bridge that divides the society horizontally: Do bridges bring people together, just as they connect the two pieces of land?
Duration: 00:12:59 By Necati Öz
The Semi-Finalist Short Films
In this dedicated section some additional information on the selected short films of the Venice Architecture Short Film Festival 2020 are presented. These films were screened during the five days of the festival at the Chiostro di San Francesco della Vigna and at Padiglione Venezia at the Giardini della Biennale.
At the Cutting Edge
In the south of India, among tropical trees and with the creatures of the forest, the biggest utopian community of the world grows: Auroville. Within the border of this magical place, Treehousecommunity - an association founded by Philipp Klingspies - gives birth to sustainable treehouses, made mostly with wood and bamboo. In december 2018, some students from Delhi reached Auroville to rebuild with a group of aurovillian the treehouse n. 58, called “the fortress”.
Duration: 00:15:00 By Filippo Tolentino
Oblivious
A walk through the unconscious: a world where realities decompose and recompose. Memories find their place among other memories. In refuge, in quarantine, in solitude, our mind may create new realities of places that used to be spaces of human encounter. We percive them now as non-places, walking alone in a nebulous emptiness. Could we ever relive this places again? Will these times affect the way we used to live together?
Duration: 00:02:27 By Alessia Rapetti, Tommaso Polli, Alexandra Galer, Janosch Kirchherr.
Cogs
The reality of life in the city is that much of our lives become personified by getting from A to B. An escalator, an intersection and an anonymous stretch of highway - all uninspired mechanisms by which we traverse through and across the city. But in isolation these cogs become something else...
Duration: 00:03:45 By Oliver Poppert
First Turn on the Left
Jalel gets lost in the street in which he has seen the light.
A paradox filled with a loss that hasn't stopped growing over the years.
Duration: 00:09:10 By Jhimi Wajdi
In Assenza
Duration: 00:08:48 By OAPPC Como
also check second and third part on Vimeo:
Jugaad
How are the challenges posed by the city structure in Mumbai met by its dwellers’ ability to innovate and adapt?
‘Jugaad’ is a Hindi word roughly translated as an innovative fix or an efficient solution that bends the rules. It represents a flexible approach towards cohabitation that is inseparable from the daily lives of Mumbaikars.
With the absent of commentary and constant dialogue, this film invites the audience to experience the multi-layered cohabitation -- each group actively creates a space for themselves and generates their personal daily ritual when navigating through Mumbai.
Duration: 00:07:49 By Chak Hin Leung
Lionheart
LionHeart is a poet and a spoken word performer. Over time, and working closely with architects and those who inhabit their buildings, his research and his work has explored Architecture & Poetry's relationship around emotional inhabitance, and its connection to memory and mental health in the city.In this short film, a collaboration with architectural film maker Jim Stephenson, LionHeart discusses his route into architecture and poetry and the power of architecture to heal, with a focus on his own 'safe place', The Barbican in London.LionHearts' words are intertwined with a performance of his poem "The Absence of Light", written for Lisa Martinez.
Duration: 00:05:00 By Jim Stephenson
Partenopea
A legend tells that Naples was founded on the remains of one of Ulisse's sirens: Parthenope. And what if Parthenope had never died? Through the alleys of the city centre, chatting with people, i set off in search of her traces; traces of feminine spirit.
Duration: 00:08:01 By Stratos Cotugno
Piazza Giardino
This garden square is the result of the requalification of an abandoned green area, located in a suburban area of Garbagnate Milanese. Aim of the project was to generate a new centrality by maintaining the existing trees and integrating them into a design that combines the image of the garden and the idea of the square.The slate flooring is organized in bands with irregular width, marked by curbs in white cement that also have the function of conveying rainwater.In this grid, green and paved areas, urban furnishing, children playgrounds and the white cement lighting system are organized in a coherent and recognizable design.The result is a place where the background geometry and the irregular pattern of the trees overlap, where the exclusive designed lighting systems emphasize the natural elements.The park was designed with a principle of flexibility, which includes the presence of fixed elements (concrete curbs, furniture and lighting system) that remains fixed, while green and paved areas can be changed according to needs.Particular attention was paid to the theme of park accessibility, including all the playgrounds that can also be used by children with disabilities.
Duration: 00:04:20 By Alberto Danelli
So Da Dusseldorf
In all the darkness there is some light – a shortdocumentary on the complex of public space, habitat and public art.
Duration: 00:03:00 By Kuesti Fraun
Symphony of the Body
In the modern architecture of Central Station in Rotterdam, two Mediterranean men front the cold efficiency of this industrial area. The building seems impenetrable for the vulnerable desire to meet a stranger. Till their shadow breaks through a light dome and they become aware of each other’s desire. Can a body, with the softness of dance and music, break the incantation of steel and stone?
Duration: 00:15:00 By Kino Rebelde
The House That Built Tsoghik
Film "The house that built Tsoghik" is a story about woman-architecture Tsoghik Arabyan, who worked in 1950-th in Armenia.
Duration: 00:15:00 By Mariam Ohanyan