Since 2016, CAFx has been hosting annual summer schools focusing on the connections between film and architecture. As a festival we are offering a platform to investigate film as an artistic, educational, and explorative tool within design, architecture, and urban planning.
Below is a selection of films produced under the theme 'Home in Times of a Pandemic', and online summer school organised by MAXXI Museum in Rome in collaboration with CAFx.
Summer School x 2020: Home in Times of a Pandemic
As part of the activities of the Future Architecture European network, MAXXI has asked five young creatives selected through the FA Open Call to produce architectural videos addressing issues related to the relationship between the pandemic and inhabited space. During an online workshop that lasted the entire month of June, the authors produced works focused on domestic isolation, the impact of lockdown on emotional and social relationships and the disturbing role played by public space in the hot months of the pandemic.
An English Garden
A three-part poetic study of Cressingham Gardens, an early-1970s social housing estate in South London.
The voices of the people who shape the place are considered, the words of architects, residents and authorities play out to 16mm footage documenting the scheme’s unique characteristics. Though a celebrated project which has forged a strong community, the threat of demolition hangs over the estate, both place and people potentially victims to London’s finance-driven neoliberal progress. By Will Jennings.
Corona Retreat
This is a journey within. Within architecture. Within what was once the ultimate emblem of Yugoslav modernism.
An introspect of whatever remains within walls. Homes. Balconies. Deep down pandemic. Deep within minds, hearts, and souls of people of the neighbourhood of Borik, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Corona Retreat” by Sonja Lakic is a journey to the interior of the virus: this portrayal of the home, the most intimate geographies of all, narrates #stayhome experience and perplex personal relationships with the pandemic itself.
White by the Absence
The spatialization of social segregation in Baltimore.
The United States Census Bureau defines non-Hispanic white as white Americans who are not of Hispanic or Latino ancestry, (i.e. having ancestry from Spain or LatinAmerica). White neighborhoods in the United States are in many cases defined as “white” by the absence of Hispanic residents. It is a social segregation that is expressed in the urban form and in the language. The specificity of the term “non-Hispanic white residents” is the emphasis that explains the dimension of the racial conflicts in deep nuances.
This film by Miguel Braceli takes place in Baltimore, a city historically marked by social segregation - more specifically in Bolton Hill, where after two years I realize that I live in a neighborhood that I do not belong to, both because of my Latino status and because of my Spanish descent. The video is a first-person narration through a game with the architecture of my white neighborhood. The image is built through several cameras attached to my body. It is a performance that occurs in the context of a pandemic, posing multiple views on the idea of isolation.
Undomesticated
In a period of forced social isolation, new forms of social organization and the redefinition of domesticity emerge as a response to global concerns - political, environmental and social.
Undomesticated by Locument is a documentary film that aims to portray new approaches to social structures. Focused on self-isolating and self-sustained communities that propose an alternative approach to everyday life, the film follows several groups in their pursuit for a way of life that can accommodate their vision of the world.
With the opportunity to tell an international story, the following films focus on individual experiences of romantic and familial love in the time of a pandemic.
MIES. TV Love Lockdown Mexico City
Whilst the scale of the emergency has been worldwide, the coping mechanisms found in each country feature humane similarities shaped by differences in cultural and legal landscapes. As an international team of filmmakers, the paradox of both limited collaborations and increased communication in these times are shown when these stories are told together. Expecting parents Walter and Ana mourned the loss of Walter’s mother during the rising threat of the pandemic in April. This grievance combined with the anticipated arrival of their second-born child showcases the infinite cycle of life and the importance of familial love.
MIES. TV Love Lockdown Vienna
Whilst the scale of the emergency has been worldwide, the coping mechanisms found in each country feature humane similarities shaped by differences in cultural and legal landscapes. As an international team of filmmakers, the paradox of both limited collaborations and increased communication in these times are shown when these stories are told together. Can digital and virtual spaces house the emotional connection for two lovers? Lockdown and closed borders initiated a long-distance relationship where the challenges of technology and shared digital spaces question whether human emotions are capable of growing in these new spaces.
MIES TV Love Lockdown London
Whilst the scale of the emergency has been worldwide, the coping mechanisms found in each country feature humane similarities shaped by differences in cultural and legal landscapes. As an international team of filmmakers, the paradox of both limited collaborations and increased communication in these times are shown when these stories are told together. As lockdown commenced, Kirsten found herself alone in a house meant for five people. Separated from her family and friends, her coping mechanisms for loneliness branched into daily communication and virtual space.
MIES. TV Love Lockdown Paris
Whilst the scale of the emergency has been worldwide, the coping mechanisms found in each country feature humane similarities shaped by differences in cultural and legal landscapes. As an international team of filmmakers, the paradox of both limited collaborations and increased communication in these times are shown when these stories are told together. During the strictest lockdown in Paris, a young architect living in a shared apartment longed to see her boyfriend. The couple twisted the laws of a limited 1-kilometer radius by deciding to meet in a supermarket which became their new romantic space.
Architecture Film Summer School, organised by MAXXI Museum in collaboration with Copenhagen Architecture Festival / part of Future Architecture, Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
