The Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) announced its 16th season celebrating the best documentaries exploring the inspiring, global world of architecture, design and art. Kicking off in NYC and then moving across North America with a special stop in Mumbai, the next edition of this popular festival will deliver a rich program of world premieres that touch on topics and locations that are meaningful to us all. The carefully curated program films are selected both for their cinematic and narrative excellence exploring topics of sustainability, culture and the power of space — both personal and public.
For New York, the festival will return to its home at the iconic Village East by Angelika, running from September 25-28th Highlights include the opening night premiere of Stardust: The Story of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown as well as films about boldface icons that include Carlo Scarpa, Eileen Gray, Rudolph Schindler, Thom Mayne, Robin Donaldson, Winy Maas of MVRVD, Laurie Olin, and others. In addition, the festival will present films exploring housing, gentrification, biomimicry, and modernism in New England. The closing night film — a U.S. premiere — will be announced shortly.
According to ADFF Founder & Director, Kyle Bergman, “Every year, I feel so proud of the films included in the festival. We curate them from hundreds of serious films submitted from around the world, and it is always hard to make the final selection. I love stepping back to reflect on the common themes that rise to the surface and the powerful ways that film and architecture come together to tell a story. I feel particularly excited about our upcoming 2024-2025 season as it features strong female protagonists and filmmakers, alongside thought-provoking films addressing housing, gentrification, urbanism, and environmental concerns.”
Kyle Bergman, Founder and Director of the Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF), is thrilled to announce the 2024/25 season, featuring an impressive lineup of filmmakers from Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and America, alongside legendary architects like Steven Holl, Laurie Olin, and Robin Donaldson. The festival will kick off in New York City from September 25-28, 2024, followed by a special presentation of Mau at Grace Farms on October 10, 2024. ADFF will then travel to Toronto (October 23-26, 2024), Vancouver (November 6-10, 2024), and Los Angeles (November 19-23, 2024), before making its way to Mumbai from January 9-12, 2025. A date for Chicago will be announced soon.
Highlights from the NY festival include five world premieres, seven US premiers and two NYC premieres. The complete Festival program, including speaker line-up and dates for ticket sales, will soon be announced online at adfilmfest.com. Continue reading to discover some of the exciting films that will be showcased.
Biocentrics
2024 / 108 min / Brazil / US Premiere
Directors: Ataliba Benaim, Fernanda Heinz Figueiredo
In Biocentrics, biologist Janine Benyus explores reinventing our world through nature’s model. Journeying globally, the film unveils the origins and principles of biomimicry, inspired by 3.8 billion years of natural innovation. Benyus, a charismatic activist, connects knowledge, cultures, and initiatives prioritizing life’s continuity. With a transdisciplinary approach, she proposes a common agenda and a cutting-edge tool to tackle imminent global challenges. Witness the birth of a new scientific frontier shaping our response to the future.
A documentary that delves into the intricate connections among all living organisms and underscores the critical need to preserve biodiversity. Featuring breathtaking visuals and insightful interviews with scientists and environmentalists, the film showcases the biomimicry design methodology and emphasizes the urgent necessity of adopting a more sustainable and harmonious relationship with nature.
Co-presented by Metropolis Magazine
DEPOT – Reflecting Boijmans
2024 / 83 min / Netherlands
Director: Sonia Herman Dolz
DEPOT – Reflecting Boijmans is a happy story of visionary minds.
While a major renovation forced Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to shut its doors to the public in 2019, an entirely new building was about to open just across the road: the Depot — a shared dream of architect Winy Maas, a founding partner of MVRDV, and Sjarel Ex — the Boijmans museum executive director. This film tells the story of the creation of the world’s first museum depot that is entirely open to visitors. Using a mixture of archival footage from Boijmans and the recent construction of Depot, director Sonia Herman Dolz draws apt parallels with the construction of the current museum building in the 1930s.
Maas and Ex show the stripped-down museum and the brand-new depot with a pleasure that is contagious, sharing their passionate views on the past and present. The film, which is a monument to the future, discloses the museum’s secrets in passing and divulges details that are normally kept out of view. Both buildings open up, revealing a treasure trove of artistic works. The result is a loving symphony for art and architecture.
E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea
2024 / 90 min / Switzerland / US Premiere
Directors: Beatrice Minger, Christoph Schaub
She built a house for herself. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a masterpiece.
Irish designer Eileen Gray built a refuge on the Côte d‘Azur in 1929. Her first house is a discrete, avant-garde masterpiece. She names it E.1027, a cryptic marriage of her initials and those of Jean Badovici, with whom she built it. Le Corbusier, upon discovering the house, becomes intrigued and obsessed. He later covers the walls with murals and publishes photos of them. Gray describes these paintings as vandalism and demands restitution. He ignores her wishes and instead builds his famous Cabanon directly behind E.1027, which dominates the narrative of the site to this day.
A story about the power of female expression, and men’s desire to control it.
Green over Gray: Emilio Ambasz
2004 / 77 min / Italy / US Premiere
Directors: Francesca Molteni, Mattia Colombo
A documentary exploring the green architecture revolution through the seminal projects of Emilio Ambasz, a pioneer in the debate on climate impact. This film illustrates how, for forty years, Ambasz has redefined the relationship between humans and their environment, foreseeing a vision of nature as the fulcrum of a historic change. Featuring exclusive interviews with figures such as Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma, the documentary highlights the importance of emotionally resonant architecture, capable of improving daily life and addressing urban and climate challenges.
Living Together: The Story of De Warren
2023 / 75 mins / Netherlands / US Premiere
Director: Sam van Zoest
Living Together: The Story of De Warren follows a group of young people during the creation of a housing cooperative that aims to be sustainable, social, and affordable. The project is ambitious: it is the first of its kind in the Netherlands, and within the group of young residential pioneers, nobody has ever built a house before.
New England Modernism: Revolutionary Architecture in the 20th Century
2024 / 100 min / USA / NY Premiere
Director: Jake Gorst
Between the 1930s and 1970s, American Modernism established an exciting and provocative footing in New England. By the 1940s the work of American master Frank Lloyd Wright and European newcomers such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius influenced generations of young architects and inspired a surprisingly large catalogue of important buildings throughout the region. Architects Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen, Philip Johnson, Eliot Noyes and many others led the charge. Dive deeply into this rich pool of talent whose buildings still hold international influence, despite the constant threat of redevelopment. These works tell the story of New England Modernism, a story rich with beauty, imagination, creativity and industriousness.
Co-presented by DOCOMOMO & AIA Historic Building Committee
Perception
2019 / 59 min / Egypt
Director: eL Seed
A film that shows the power of creating together can inspire an entire community. In the neighborhood of Manshiyat Nasr in Cairo, the community of Zaraeeb has collected the trash of the city for decades and developed the most efficient and highly profitable recycling system on a global level. Still, the place is perceived as dirty, marginalized and segregated.
The Tunisian artist eL Seed uses graphic design as a tool to bring communities together. eL Seed and his team created an anamorphic piece that covers almost 50 buildings visible from a specific point of Moqattam Mountain. The piece of art uses the words of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria — a Coptic Bishop from the 3rd century — who said “Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eye first.”
Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square
2022 / 83 min / USA
Directors: Kelly Anderson, Kathryn Barnier, Ryan Joseph
In 1959 New York City announced a “slum clearance plan” by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working-class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit — not displace — residents, a working mother named Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee (CSC) and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification – cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working-class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty-three years later, they established the state’s first community land trust – a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the “real estate capital of the world.”
A trailblazing housing organizer and her diverse working-class neighbors fight Robert Moses, the real estate industry and five mayors to create the first Community Land Trust in New York City — an oasis of permanent low-income housing in the heart of the rapidly gentrifying Lower East Side.
Co-presented by Village Trip
Schindlers Space Architect
2024 / 90 min / USA / World Premiere
Director: Valentina B. Ganeva
The first feature-length documentary about the life and works of R. M. Schindler, the most innovative and the least understood of all the pioneers of modern architecture. The film affirms the singular genius of one man, and the eternal challenge every artist faces to stay true to their vision in an effort to leave a lasting impact.
Schindler transformed the way we see space and how we use it. His architecture grew from inside-out directly responding to the lifestyle of its occupants; it elevated their everyday existence by bringing it into harmony with nature. Schindler experimented and invented over 30 years: suffering the ups and downs of a creative genius, forging his own vision. His struggles and creative message are timeless. This project is a tribute to a man before his time who was a rebel and a true original.
Sitting Still
2024 / 90 / USA / World Premiere
Director: Gina Angelone
Trailer
While you may not know his name, chances are you know his work. Laurie Olin is responsible for many of the most iconic and beloved parks, gardens and public spaces in the country, including the Getty Center Gardens, Battery Park City, Columbus Circle, the National Gallery of Art sculpture garden, the Washington Monument grounds, Bryant park, mission bay and independence mall, to name only a few. His imprint on cityscapes extends to many more public spaces he’s created all over the world.
Sitting Still portrays this irreverent urban warrior and his profoundly social vision. The telling of Laurie Olin’s story is not conventional. Rather, it is a portrait of an artist told through a prism of concerns which have defined his life’s work: urbanization and a lost connection to nature, economic marginalization, and the grave importance of humanity in design.
Stardust: The Story of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
2024 / 90 / USA /World Premiere
Director: Jim Venturi
Denise Scott Brown has been one of the world’s most influential architects of the 20th Century, but she has lived her life alongside her even more famous Pritzker Prize-winning partner and husband, Robert Venturi. Filmed over a decade by their son, Stardust, follows ‘Bob and Denise’ in a (tragi-comic) road movie across continents as they look back to the events and buildings that inspired a partnership and love affair of over half a century. Always holding hands, whether in their most famous building, the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, or while sitting on foldable chairs in their kitchen, surrounded by rooms filled with Las Vegas memorabilia and art, we share their secrets and loves. These brilliant innovators, always out of step with the architectural establishment, revolutionized the practice of architecture through their buildings and writings. Venturi, raised by Italian parents, pays homage to Rome, the “eternal” city that profoundly affected him as an artist and led to the writing of Complexity and Contradiction, which influenced generations of architects worldwide. This ground-breaking film is a vibrant montage of early archival and colourful verité which shows how Bob and Denise, together, changed the course of architecture. Yet in a profession where the notion of lone genius is exalted, will Denise ever convince people that creativity really can exist in two minds?
Co-presented by The Architectural League
This Is Not A House
2023 / 30 min / USA /World Premiere
Director: Morgan Neville
This Is Not A House details the construction of one of the most unique homes in the world. A collaboration of art and technology – a chance to play. The architect is Robin Donaldson – Donaldson+Partners.
Co-presented by Architect’s Newspaper
The House: 6 Points of Departure
2024 / 46 min / USA / World Premiere
Director: Gregg Goggin
After 30 years, extraordinary architects Thom Mayne and Robin Donaldson return to a pivotal site in their careers. With 2.5 years to design, and 2.5 years to build, the Crawford House in Montecito, California emerged as a house of ideas and one of the world’s most widely studied pieces of residential architecture. The House takes us on an exploration of the creative process, and art’s impact on architecture, and reveals insights into these renowned architects’ pursuit of the singular Idea.
Co-presented by Architect’s Newspaper
The Pavilion On The Water
2023 / 77 min / Italy / US Premiere
Directors: Stefano Croci, Silvia Siberini
The documentary feature film The Pavilion On The Water is a cinematic journey into the world of Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa and his passion for Japanese culture.
Japan, to him, was an inspirational universe but also the place where he eventually died in 1978, at the height of his career, while retracing the steps of wandering poet Matsuo Bashō.
Through the words of Japanese philosopher Ryosuke Ōhashi, the film unfolds and quests after a sense of beauty. It is the possibility of reflecting on this matter that brings together Scarpa’s work and Japanese traditional aesthetic.
Co-presented by Molteni
Where We Grow Older
2023 / 30 min / Canada / US Premiere
Director: Daniel Schwartz
Trailer
Where will you live once you are old? Will your city take care of you? How to design for the elderly, and for those who care for them? The short documentary Where We Grow Older looks at how the growing aging population is reshaping architectural and social constructs and questions the role of urban design and politics in facing these challenges. The film investigates two models of how care and housing can be reconceived in light of prolonged lives: public housing as part of municipal policies and infrastructure — where the city is the caretaker — and the creation of a new architectural model that offers care in a single building managed by private entities not only to the elderly but also to their caretakers — where the building becomes the city.
The film takes us to a housing project in the center of Barcelona conceived as part of the city’s social housing program and positioning the elderly as active community members and to Carehaus in Baltimore — the first intergenerational care-based co-housing project in the United States which uses space as a catalyst for the development of care-based communities by bringing together caretakers and caregivers. While the cities and the political and economic contexts differ, the two projects present the same desire to address demographic aging in a spatial and unsegregated way.
