Venice Architecture Film Festival 2021
September 1st to 5th 2021
at Marinaressa Gardens – Venice

venice architecture film festival logo 2021 - communities

Venice Architecture Film Festival is an annual event aimed at recognizing issues relevant to architecture, the use of public space and sense of community.

Through the contents of the selected movies, documentaries and animation and short movies, the festival poses questions: What makes a place livable? In what cities we want to live in? What kind of vibrant place for the social and cultural development we wish to create?

The festival is a journey to explore the perception of cities as places for cultural and social development and speaks about architecture from an anthropological perspective and as a tool to shape our society.

The festival spun on a five-day schedule, from the 1st to the 5th of September 2021 at the Giardini della Marinaressa, facing the Bacino di San Marco, in Venice. For its second edition, the VAFF 2021, the program included three main sections.

The Architecture Short Film Competition

The competition is open and free. The films will have a duration of preferably 15 minutes and will deal with the theme Communities.
The selected films deal with issues related to the different dimensions and meanings of contemporary architecture, with particular regard and exploration on the themes of the city, the landscape, the use and re-appropriation of public space, sociability of sharing and neighborhood life.
Every place, big or small, helps identify a community: from the family to the social sphere, from the artistic to the intellectual scene, from the mountain to the urban landscapes, from the supportive to the popular community, from the nomadic to the settled society.

VAFF/Films And International relations

For the further exploration and deeper research upon the theme of community, VAFF presents a selection of long films. The selection has been created thanks to the collaboration with a larger network of professionals in the field.
On the occasion of the 2021 festival we will present films in cooperation with the Canadian Centre of Architecture, BARQFestival, Move Cine Arch. More info about the program and detailed list of contents will be soon published.

VAFF/Fringe

As a growing path and an inspiring source of creativity, the VAFF is pleased to announce the section VAFF/ fringe in cooperation with two of the leading universities to present the perspective and genius of young talents. For 2021 we will present a selection of the best films of the students from the IUAV University of Venice - Department of Architecture and Arts and the AA school of architecture of London

2021 program - Day by Day

September 1st 2021 Afternoon

Fringe - From the Universities
• 17:00 Journeys by H. Baboyan, P. Mendoza, L. Ortheil, F. Borghese, A. Lazzari (IUAV Venice) – 20’
• 17:20 The city in a city by Chun Yu Eric Chan (AA School of Architecture in London) – 14’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 17:35 Seductive Living Space by Maria Luisa Priori – 8’
• 17:45 It’s all about the building by Matteo D’Argenio – 4’
• 18:50 The last man of Assago by Luigi Mammana – 6’

Out of Competition
• 18:00 Asinara to Venice by Martin Tadili, Silvia Spiriti, curatela scientifica: Annacaterina Piras – 13’

Evening

Fringe – From the Universities
• 20:30 Nitidamente by E. Moro, G. Perolo, V. Notarangeli (IUAV Venice) – 9’
• 20:40 A dissolving rurality by Aijie Xiong (AA School of Architecture in London) – 14’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 20:55 5th place - What is the shape of your wall? by Y-ul Suh – 15’

ArchiTuned Selection
• 21:10 Cinema Grattacielo by Marco Bertozzi –  100’

September 2nd 2021 Afternoon

Fringe - From the Universities
• 17:00 Hereke by G. Raimondo, E. Di Leone, M. Tanasie (IUAV Venice) – 5’
• 17:05 Communal Privacy by Dariya Cherimisina (AA School of Architecture in London) – 12’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 17:20 Hem 243 Series: The OC Seller by Andrew Stiff – 5’
• 17:25 Gone by Anika Salvesen – 6
• 17:35 Iceberg Licking Society by Nathan Ceddia – 15’

Out of Competition

• 17:50 Stones of Venice by Ugo Carmeni – 3'
• 17:55 La deuxième vie d’une porte / nouvelles pratiques de construction by Aloyse Leledy – 5'

Evening

Fringe - From the Universities
• 21:00 Ardeidae by C. Chiatti, C. Faggionato, D. Tucci (IUAV Venice) – 15’
• 21:15 Lon(don)liness C. Miralles Tagliabue (AA School of Architecture in London) – 13’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 21:30 4th place - Pianeta Rota by Eleonora Mastropietro – 15’

ArchiTuned Selection
in cooperation with aeternamfilms
• 21:45 Storgetnya by Hovig Hagopian –  21’

September 3rd 2021 Afternoon

Fringe – From the Universities
• 17:00 Forgotten by N. Ciuffo, F. Caccuri, I. Pisanti (IUAV Venice) – 22’
• 17:25 Voices of Modern Ruines by Taek Gyun Won (AA School of Architecture in London) – 15’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 17:40 Bandera by Mario Orozco – 11’
• 17:55 Toreng Garing by Richard Legaspi – 4’
• 18:00 Ocuyrey by Federico Cairoli – 14’

Out of Competition
• 18:15 Starting Points by Floor Hofman – 25’

Evening

Fringe – From the Universities
• 21:00 Io c’ero by L. Adessi, E. Boraggini, B. Marrotta, I. Pisanu (IUAV Venice) 15’
• 21:15 Homo Mobilis by Nikola Miloradovic (AA School of Architecture in London) 15’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 21:30 3rd place – Still Turning by Jesse Picket– 10’

ArchiTuned Selection
in cooperation with Move Cine Arte
• 21:40 Midway by Marco Alessi –  30’

September 4th 2021 Afternoon

Fringe – From the Universities
• 17:00 Le flaneur by G. Ghiretti, F. Soffietti (IUAV Venice) – 20’
• 17:20 I am not mad; I am Nomad by Tomiris Batalova (AA School of Architecture in London) – 13’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 17:35 Thirty-seven movies for a home by Arianna Lodeserto – 11’
• 17:50 Ascona by Julius Dommer – 15’
• 18:05 Lower Grand by Jeff Dorer – 10’

Out of Competition
• 18:15 Demeure by Lucie Martin – 39’

Evening

Fringe - From the Universities
• 21:00 The Beast by L. Petrucci, A. Bertoli, G. Sterpin, E. Zingarelli (IUAV Venice) – 9’
• 21:10 Aunt Du by Hao Du (AA School of Architecture in London) – 14’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 21:25 2nd place – Kopacabana by Marco Bonisson, Khalil Charif – 13’

ArchiTuned Selection
• 21:40 Oslavia. La Grotta del Futuro Anteriore by Ila Beka & Louise Lemoine – 16'
• 21:55 What It Takes To Make A Home by Daniel Schwarz, conceived by Giovanna Borasi – 30’ – in cooperation and produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA

September 5th 2021 Afternoon

From WIGO|Russia

ArchiTuned Short Film Competition, see official page

• 17:00 Inversion by Kristina Pethukina (3° place) – 4’
• 17:05 2 or 3 things I know about Rostov-On-Don by Alex Zahar (2° place) –  13’
• 17:20 In Motion by Isabella Gallo (winner) – 8’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 17:30 Spacial Ritual by Lucas Bacle – 4’
• 17:35 Not for sale by Nicholas Hooper H. & Valentina Sanz – 11’
• 17:50 Lands by Federico Cairoli – 15’

Out of Competition
• 18:05 Le Geste Final by Olivier Cazin – 28’

Evening

20:00 Award Ceremony for the Communities competition winner

Fringe - From the Universities
• 21:15 Un metro distanti by G. Garozzo, V. Corvaro, E. Tentella, G.C. Carelli (IUAV Venice) – 14’
• 21:15 Distanced Intimacy by Zheaho Hong (AA School of Architecture in London) – 15’

Communities - Short Film Competition 2021
• 21:30 Winner – Hippocampus Ghosts by Giorgio Rossentino – 5’

ArchiTuned Selection
• 21:35 Making a Mountain by Rikke Selin Fokdal, Kaspar Astrud Schroeder – 52’
Tutti gli eventi giornalieri dal 1 al 5 Settembre presso la sede dei Giardini della Marinaressa sono patrocinati dall'Ordine degli Architetti Pianificatori Paesaggisti e Conservatori di Venezia.

2021 Edition Press Release

The second edition of the Venice Architecture Film Festival

ArchiTuned has launched a short-films competition on architecture, a selection, which includes short documentaries, docu-films, animations, experimental films by international authors, will be presented during the Festival and will include a shortlist of five best short films and one short film to be awarded on the final day.  The shortlist of films and the official award for the short film winner of the 2021 edition will be decided by the association ArchiTuned in collaboration with a Jury of experts and professionals from the world of architecture and cinema.
For the further exploration and deeper research upon the theme of community, VAFF presents a selection of long films. This cinematographic review has been created in collaboration with a larger network of professionals in the field. On the occasion of the 2021 festival, we will present films in cooperation with a.o. the Canadian Centre for Architecture, BARQFestival, Move Cine Arte, aeternamfilms.
As a growing path and an inspiring source of creativity, the VAFF is pleased to announce the section VAFF/ fringe in cooperation with two of the leading universities to present the perspective and genius of young talents. A selection of the best films of the students from the IUAV University of Venice - Department of Architecture and Arts and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London will be screened as part of the program.
Additionally, titles and works of interest will be presented in the out of competition section.
Cinema, as the narrative lens chosen to unravel stories, social realities in the urban landscapes and ways of living, is the language chosen to communicate with a wider audience aiming to reflect on our trends, on how diverse environments get inhabited and questioning our possible future scenarios.
Architecture itself will be presented under different perspectives and investigated as a fundamental instrument that influences and shapes our habits, our future, the sense of community we are building everyday by living together in our spaces.
The films in the program will explore specific urban settings and a wide variety of elements characterizing diverse inhabited places, trying to identify what stimulates or blocks a community to get together, to enjoy and live in harmony or to fight for your dreams. Themes such as living in the city, the landscape, the use and reappropriation of public space, the sense of community, sociability of sharing and neighborhood life will be explored.
The variety of the different realities represented through the films reflects the cross section of visions, choices and needs of diverse communities, while presenting the value and role of architecture and the social, geographic, cultural and political contexts.

 

VAFF
Venice Architecture Film Festival is a film festival dedicated to architecture and it is an annual event aimed at recognizing issues relevant to architecture and to the exploration of its anthropological and social implications on our society.
The Festival, entirely conceived and curated by the members of the ArchiTuned cultural association, collects and depicts the experiences of diverse realities, offering a wide overview and a cross-section of real life frames of a cultural context, social developments and dynamics within the inhabited environments.

 

Program
Entrance from 20:00 to 20:30. All screening events from the 1st to the 5th September at Giardini della Marinaressa will start shortly after ( see more specifics directly on the official website.
Participation in the screening evenings is admission free with reservations required and with the Green Pass – covid-19 Certificate, in compliance with the Legislative Decree no. 105 of July 23rd, 2021.

 

Partners and Supporters
European Cultural Centre, Ordine degli Architetti PPC Venezia, Fondazione dell’Ordine degli Architetti PPC di Venezia, CrazyBit, Assicurazioni Generali, UniCredit, Domodry, cnt-apps Research Project, UniSVe, Iskra Restauri, Clementson Travel Office, Select, Bar Al Vecio Calice, Antica Murano, A-Office, Oblò Architetti, pact, Atelier Architettura Antonio Zanon, marcoferracuti.it
Media Partners: Domus, Venews.

This image for Image Layouts addon
What It Takes To Make A Home
by Daniel Schwarz, conceived by Giovanna Borasi – 30’
in cooperation and produced by the Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA – Photo courtesy of the artist
This image for Image Layouts addon
Cinema Grattacielo
by Marco Bertozzi – 100’
Photo courtesy of the artist
This image for Image Layouts addon
Making a Mountain
by Rikke Selin Fokdal, Kaspar Astrud Schroeder – 52’
Photo courtesy of the artist
This image for Image Layouts addon
Midway
by Marco Alessi – 30’
Photo courtesy of the artist
This image for Image Layouts addon
Storgetnya
by Hovig Hagopian – 21 ’
Photo © La Fémis

The Selected Short Films

Twenty Short Films have been selected for the final phase of the Communities Competition.
Below you can find some additional information on the films screened during the five days of the festival at the Giardino della Marinaressa.

Ascona

Ascona

ASCONA shows a place that seems to have fallen out of time, that has not changed since the 1950s but still exists. A miniature golf course becomes a social analysis analogy.
ASCONA shows protagonists who with dry humour describe the beginnings and difficulties of the course and the sport - between leisure and professional sport. Reflecting the conversatism of the 1950s ASCONA features a cross-section of society.

Duration: 00:15:00 By Julius Dommer

Bandera

Bandera

A documentary film about the meaning of being Mexican

Duration: 00:11:00 By Mario Orozco

Gone

Gone

"Gone" is an experimental documentary filmed in April and May 2020 in Oslo, Norway. The film is a reaction to the national shock after the country went into lockdown on the 12th of March. The audience is invited on a contemplative journey through Oslo where the city's emptiness and human insignificance are focal points.

Duration: 00:06:17 By Anika Salvesen

Hippocampus Ghosts

Competition Winner
fas fa-trophy
Hippocampus Ghosts

Memories of a Mexican town flooded by the government seventy years ago.

Duration: 00:16:14 By Giorgio Rossentino

 

Iceberg Licking Society

Iceberg Licking Society

A never before seen look into the mysterious world of the Iceberg Licking Society as the association faces iceberg-licking's greatest threat: global warming.

Duration: 00:04:40 By Nathan Ceddia

Hem 243 Series: The Oc Seller

Hem 243 Series: The Oc Seller

The alleyways (hems) of District 4, Saigon, reflect more than their hard urban construction. They are reflection of a culture based on family and community. This film is part of a continuing series of experimental visual explorations of District 4, that use post-production manipulation as a tool to mediate a local context, through the lens of western filmmaker. The film focuses on the space around an oc (sea snails) seller, located in a tightly packed alleyway, located in the middle of the district. The wider narrative is one of a complex, layered and intricate interplay between family and community operating in a space that acts as an extension to the house, a playground, cafe, food court, and communal meeting place. These uses are tempered by the continual flow pedestrian and motorcycle traffic; a reminder of a world beyond the alley. The soundscape is developed by sound artist Thierry Bernard-Gotteland, and utilises site specific audio recordings, that have been developed to counter the continuous flow of noise that characterises these alleys.

Duration: 00:05:00 - By Andrew Stiff

It's all about the buildings

It's all about the buildings

A journey inside the mind of a young girl becoming a new yorker. Also a meditation on urban alienation and how the everyone's life is affected by the buildings.

Duration: 00:4:16 By Matteo D'Argenio

Lands

lands

Two coincidences, one geographical - the region of the city of Cunha, en the state of Sao Paulo - and other material - the use of clay bricks - motivate the interest of three architectural offices (Ar arquitetos, Arquipelago and Messina Rivas) for documenting procedures of land transformation, a primary raw material, into local vernacular resources involved in the construction process of three arquitectural projects. In the exercise of re-imagining how everyday life shapes the designing practice, the propose is to reveal the working protocols of Zé Tabuinha and Burrico, two potters from the Cunha región, reflecting on the possible intertwining of everyday life and bodies that are interdependent in the construction process os a project.

Duration: 00:15:00 By Federico Cairoli

The Last Man of Assago

The Last Man of Assago

A desperate worker returns to the abandoned streets of the Milanese suburbs where he worked.
A tribute to "The Last Man on Earth", science fiction horror with Vincent Price

Duration: 00:05:49 By Nino Pescecane

Lower Grand

Lower Grand

The secret life of a street known to most from its numerous appearances in movies, television shows and commercials.

Lower Grand chronicles the uneven recovery after the Great Recession through the aspect of this unique setting. Depending which side you're on, its portals are a window on the upper crust of American society or its lower depths.

Duration: 00:10:00 By Jeff Dorer

Not for Sale

Not for Sale

Duration: 00:11:00 By Nicholas Hooper H., Valentina Sanz

OCUYREY. Community Centre MBYA Guaraní

OCUYREY. Community Centre MBYA Guaraní

Today's, Guaraní territory has more than 280,000 people, united by a common language and culture, distributed in 1,416 communities in South America.
In the Province of Misiones, Argentina, the Guaraní population exceeds 10,000 inhabitants distributed in 120 communities.
The fight for the recognition of Indigenous Rights is constant and tireless. His determined defense of the environment is due to the fact that nowadays the lack of forest brings food care, difficulties with religious practices and the impossibility of self-sufficiency.
Ocuyrey, the Community Centre (Guaraní name with which the community baptized the construction) is partly a temple, pavilion, a space for communion, a building that reflects the dialogue between ancestral, popular, and academic knowledge, contributing to the civic and spiritual union of the community, trying to contribute to the empowerment of the community through a common, replicable and sustainable project that reinforces and conserves its ecosystem, its culture and contributes to social and community well-being. The building goes into the jungle: the location is defined by the community as a space for contemplating nature, a door to the jungle, a way of projecting the future.

Duration: 00:13:41 By Federico Cairoli

Pianeta Rota

Fourth Selected Film
Pianeta Rota

The renowned Italian architect Italo Rota has been collecting objects, expressions of the city and urban development, all his life. His collection includes an unspecified number of pieces, stored in his Milan home and in a warehouse. Rota himself does not actually know how many items he owns, but he estimates over one hundred thousand. More than a collection, it is an assemblage of books, popular objects and rare works of art. In 2021 a selection of Rota's pieces were exhibited in Lucca in the exhibition "Pianeta città", organised by the Ragghianti Foundation.
The documentary collects Italo Rota's testimony on the meaning of his collecting and on the use of objects as instruments for knowledge.

Duration: 00:18:41 By Eleonora Mastropietro

Seductive Living Space

Seductive Living Space

The short film "Seductive Living Space" is the attempt to frame, from the point of view of interiority, a visual, sound and poetic story about the relationship between the human being and the environment through the architecture.
The seduction is a process that begine frome the outside, it crosses our minds and it can interacts with our thoughts and actions. Wherever we are, the shapes of the world comunicates with us. When we stay in a place we can feel its seduction through the stories, the smells, the sounds and the taste of the spaces it is made of. All these sensorial and cultural inputs are like a food for our body such as for our mind and this is the reason way we thake care of our houses, the places where we spend the most of the time are shells for the memories, for the inner moments and for the dreams.

Duration: 00:7:38 By Maria Luisa Priori

Spatial Ritual

Spatial Ritual

Spacial Ritual is sensitive film trying to show ironically how architects would like to see their own projects experienced by users.

Duration: 00:04:03 By Lucas Bacle

Still Turning

Third Selected Film
Still Turning

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: 00:10:00 By Jesse Pickett

Thirty-seven movies for a home

Thirty-seven movies for a home

At various times during the 60s and the l’70s,
the urgency of the struggle triggered “a cinema right now”,
underground as well as militant, experimental as much as documentary.
That immediate cinema, joyful and conspiratorial, intended to upset the cinematic shapes,
its narrow boundaries and its productive logics,
as well as to tell otherwise the alternative forms of human inhabitancy.
Thirty-seven movies for a home is a visual essay made of film shreds and videotape flats,
of fighting women and building speculators, of criticism and action.

This short movie is also the fifth chapter of
TOWARDS A COUNTER HISTORY OF ITALIAN CINEMA
(a collective video essay about underground movies, a journey in images through the secret history of Italian film, organised by Chiara Grizzafi and Filmidee)

Duration: 00:11:00 - By Arianna Lodeserto

TORENG GARING - 象牙塔

TORENG GARING - 象牙塔

Ivory Tower is an experimental short documentary film of combined sound and images of labor protest of South-East Asian migrant workers in Taipei. The windows from the historical village of Taoyuan represent the realities and disconnection of some Taiwanese about labor rights issues today. As the resounding collective voices of the laborers transform into a solid force, there’s no reason not to act.

Duration: 00:04:00 By Richard Soriano Legaspi

Kopacabana

Second selected Film
Kopacabana

Film set in the neighborhood of Copacabana, elaborated through a collage of current and archive images (Super 8 and digital). An experimental work narrated by the significant speech of the poet Fausto Fawcett, and sonorized by the musician Arnaldo Brandão.

Duration: 00:13:33 By Marcos Bonisson, Khalil Charif

What is the shape of your wall?

Fifth Selected Film
What is the shape of your wall?

I explore the wall ranging from building material to a psychological wall, and how it affects our behavior, movement, and way of thinking. During my research, there have been many shifts in my relationship with the wall. It was a process to discover this object that is inevitably and tightly weaved into our lives. My perspective has changed several times, from seeing this object as a symbol of limitation, creating simultaneously a stronger mental wall bringing me an urge to break down what creates the disconnection between us, to realize that at the same time how much it has become fundamental in our lives in terms of giving a definition to space and creating interior space where we have spent more and more time within. Now, I am reaching a point where I am rediscovering the potential of a wall as an object that is in fact creating connections and relationships, and making passageways on the horizon of overflowing possibilities.

Through interior monologue and conversations and various media, I attempt to reveal the experiences of confrontations and connections around walls which we all share. It is a journey of exploring its complexity and discovering it as a living material that is not just rigid nor solid, but rather that it is fluid, ever-changing, like an organism.

Duration: 00:11:47 By Y-ul Suh

Venice Architecture Film Festival