Sotsgorod: Cities for Utopia

Life, Assembled

50 years after the realization of their utopias, three old architects take the director on a journey to discover extraordinary housing. A joyful journey through time, from which emerges a crucial question: how will we live tomorrow?

Paris, the Mystery of the Disappeared Palace

In the heart of Paris, an entire palace has disappeared. It was the very first residence of the kings of France. Long before Versailles, long before the Louvre, the Palais de la Cité stood on the most prestigious island in Paris, the historic cradle of France, facing Notre-Dame. So majestic in the Middle Ages, this palace has become a ghost of history. Over the centuries, this architectural masterpiece has almost completely disappeared. A trio of experts will resurrect it in 3D. Using science and unprecedented excavations, they will track down the pieces of the puzzle to reconstruct it at its peak in the 14th century, and bring back to life those who inhabited it. From the Romans to the Vikings, from Saint Louis to the cursed kings, all have left clues of this 'Versailles of the Middle Ages'.

Beyrouth, Le Dialogue Des Ruines

Architecture in Beirut was the second greatest victim of the civil war, with pages of ancient and modern history erased by the end of the conflict. This documentary interviews citizens calling for a reconstruction plan that would preserve Beirut’s spirit of culture and openness.

Bauhaus 100

In 1919 an art school opened in Germany that would change the world forever. It was called the Bauhaus. A century later, its radical thinking still shapes our lives today. Bauhaus 100 is the story of Walter Gropius, architect and founder of the Bauhaus, and the teachers and students he gathered to form this influential school. Traumatised by his experiences during the Great War, and determined that technology should never again be used for destruction, Gropius decided to reinvent the way art and design were taught. At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines would come together to create the buildings of the future, and define a new way of living in the modern world.

Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Modern Masterpiece

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Modern Masterpiece, Unity Temple is an homage to America’s most renowned architect. The film pulls back the curtain on Wright’s first public commission in the early 1900’s to the painstaking efforts to restore the 100 year old building back to its original beauty. The dedicated team of historians, craftspeople, members of the Unitarian congregation and Unity Temple Restoration Foundation reveal the history of one of Wright’s most innovative buildings that merged his love of architecture with his own spiritual values. The film intersperses the architect’s philosophies with quotes narrated by Brad Pitt.

Housing a Dream

Housing a Dream follows Dutch visionary artist Joost Conijn as he builds his dream home—an unconventional, rotating house that turns with the help of a red bicycle mounted to its floor. By pedaling, Joost can orient the house to follow the sunlight, reflecting his work's delicate balance between function and poetry. Through his process, the film explores the philosophies shaped by a lifetime of craftsmanship, revealing how building a home can become a profound act of artistic creation.

Electronic Poem

Poème Électronique is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The Philips corporation commissioned Le Corbusier to design the pavilion, which was intended as a showcase of their engineering progress. The pavilion was shaped like a stomach, with a narrow entrance and exit on either side of a large central space. As the audience entered and exited the pavilion, the electronic composition Concret PH by Iannis Xenakis (who also acted as Le Corbusier's architectural assistant for the pavilion's design) was heard. Poème électronique was synchronized to a film of black and white photographs selected by Le Corbusier which touched on vague themes of human existence.

Nothing Remains Nothing Disappears

A Berlin street corner is slowly changing: an aging supermarket turns into a construction site and finally a new building. People restock shelves, demolish walls, take breaks and count money. Those who work here participate in the making and unmaking of the place. How does it shape the conditions of their labor? Between supermarket aisles, construction scaffolding and exposed concrete, different versions begin to overlap. Repetitions appear like echoes between worlds, both playful and eerie.

Luc Durand Leaving Delhi

A portrait of the Canadian architect Luc Durand (1929 – 2018), who, after studying with Eugène Beaudoin in Switzerland, began his career in India. This period would be decisive for his career and would influence many of the projects he designed in Quebec, including the Quebec Pavilion at Expo 67, Place Dupuis, and the Olympic Village for the 1976 Olympic Games. Durand then decided to return to his roots in 2012, traveling from Montreal to Geneva, from New Delhi to Chandigarh. A portrait of an eminent figure in Quebec architecture.

Louis Kahn's Tiger City

Art historian and filmmaker Sundaram Tagore travels in the footsteps of Louis Kahn to discover how the famed American architect built a daringly modern and monumental parliamentary complex in war-torn Bangladesh.

Notre-Dame Résurrection

Not So Much a Facelift…

A short documentary exploring the UK’s 1970s approach to urban renewal through General Improvement Areas. Mixing location footage from Blackburn, Norwich, and Oxford with unexpectedly quirky presentation, the film contrasts small-scale housing improvements with the sweeping redevelopment schemes of the post-war era. Produced as a government public information film and shown at meetings between planners, architects, and residents, it stands as a modest, humane entry in Britain’s civic-minded documentary tradition.

In retrospect

Immigrant workers build a shopping mall for the upcoming 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 2016, nine people with migrant backgrounds are killed in a racist attack at the same mall.

Neuschwanstein Castle - King Ludwig's Dream

Part architectural genius, part kitsch fairytale, Neuschwanstein Castle is closely linked to the tragic fate of Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-1886). The "Mad King" poured his heart and soul into this unique construction which looks back nostalgically to the Middle Ages. A focus on the history of a building filled with dreams and legends which has become an icon of Germany around the world.

Maillart's Bridges

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.

Venezia Diorama

Through a series of animated art boards depicting a decaying Venice, the film unfolds like a set of postcards, capturing the mythical city's final moments of fragility. Blending archival footage with contemporary observations, and anchored by the story of the 1902 collapse of St Mark's Campanile, Venezia Diorama invites us to reflect on a city slowly eroding, yet suspended in time.

Warsaw: A City Divided

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.

Teatro Amazonas: The Art of Sound and Nature

The history of the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, an opera house located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, whose construction, between 1884 and 1896, depended on the labor exploitation of the local indigenous populations, provides an insight into the cultural, social and political situation in Brazil.

Narbonne: The Second Rome

More than 2.000 years ago, Narbonne in today's Département Aude was the capital of a huge Roman province in Southern Gaul - Gallia Narbonensis. It was the second most important Roman port in the western Mediterranean and the town was one of the most important commercial hubs between the colonies and the Roman Empire, thus the town could boast a size rivaling that of the city that had established it: Rome itself. Paradoxically, the town that distinguished itself for its impressive architecture, today shows no more signs of it: neither temples, arenas, nor theaters. Far less significant Roman towns like Nîmes or Arles are full of ancient sites. Narbonne today is a tranquil town in Occitania

The Architecture of Doom

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.