April 29: Christoph Draeger & Heidrun Holzfeind: Tsunami Architecture

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KÉK presents the next event of the Spring Architecture Film Series: Christoph Draeger & Heidrun Holzfeind: Tsunami Architecture 60 min, 2012, with English subtitles April 29, Toldi mozi, 7pm – in presence of the directors The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was one of the worst natural catastrophes in history. While international attention has faded, post-tsunami challenges continue to have an impact on affected communities. In the winter of 2010/2011, Draeger and Holzfeind took a three-month trip to the five countries most affected–Thailand, Aceh/Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives and India– to investigate the current state of architecture built or reconstructed in the…

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April 15: Mission Statements – The Architecture of Diplomacy

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KÉK presents the next event of the Spring Architecture Film Series: 2011, 60 mins, colour, Dutch film with Hungarian subtitles D: Jord den Hollander In 1991 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands decided to promote national architecture abroad. All over the world new embassies were realised by prominent Dutch architects. After 20 years the Dutch government stopped the project for economic and political reasons. The Ministry of Foreign affairs declared on April 8th 2011: ?We will move away from the traditional image of an embassy as a building with a flag and a mission staff.? The film Mission…

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Greetings from Denver

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Design Onscreen–The Initiative for Architecture and Design on Film is honored to co-sponsor the 2012 edition of the Budapest Architecture Film Days.  We congratulate the team of enthusiastic Hungarian architects who have worked so hard to ensure that this year?s Budapest festival offers a stimulating mix of excellent design films from around the world. Design Onscreen is a nonprofit foundation based in Denver, Colorado and dedicated to producing, promoting and preserving great films on architecture and design.  Founded in 2007 by documentary enthusiasts Kirk Brown and Jill Wiltse, Design Onscreen?s documentaries include: Modern Tide: Midcentury Architecture on Long Island (2012);…

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This year’s themes

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Movement and architecture Dancing in the rebuilt Neues Museum and on the waving steel sheets of Frank Gehry, freerunning in Copenhagen and skateboarding in a run-down housing estate. Keeping off the grass in Eastern Hungary and jumping on the roof in the Hudson Valley. Starchitects, bloodthirsty pensioners, and a hidden camera. Why do Danish traceurs want to move to a playground and why don?t Józsa skaters just go back to theirs? Poetic images, graceful motions, the delicate play of the muscles. Take your skateboards and sod off or I?ll get my axe. Memories of modernism Did modernism really die on…

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Interview with Jord den Hollander architect, director and head of the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR)

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How did you as an architect become a festival organizer? In 1999 in Rotterdam we organized a symposium on the topic of the image of the city. We showed the obvious films, like Metropolis, Blade Runner and we found out that there was lot of interest in the topic. I toke my chance and the year after we organized a very small event with only architectural films. We had about 8 documentaries and feature films. Since then we have grown immensely into an organisation that shows more than hundred documentaries and feature films. We also keep a database with many…

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Interview with Francisca Mu?oz, founder of Arquitecture Film Festival Santiago (AFFS)

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AFFS will be the first Architecture Film Festival in South America. Why did you decide to organize a film festival dedicated to architecture? What was your main objective? AFFS: The members of the collective AFFS of Chile have followed with great enthusiasm and admiration the development of the architecture film festival Rotterdam AFFR and the similar initiatives in Europe to start off this triggering event. As architects, we were interested in the discussion that was generated around these festivals and it seemed that film was an excellent platform to broaden the reflection on architecture beyond the academic and technical world…

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Interview with director Chad Friedrichs of ?The Pruitt-Igoe Myth?

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J.T.: You?ve done films on presidential lookalikes and enigmatic musicians. What inspired you to do a film on Pruitt-Igoe? C.F.: I was doing some research on how to decorate my home that I just bought in mid-century style. In the process of researching modern architecture, I came across Pruitt-Igoe. It was fascinating to me because encoded into this idea of modern architecture was the idea that you could have social change come about and Pruitt-Igoe was viewed as this failure of it. And then slowly as I researched it I came to decide it was a much deeper story than…

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Interview with Jord den Hollander director about the film Mission Statements

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Tell us about your new film, Mission Statements, The Architecture of Diplomacy. JdH: After finishing my last film on Africa, I had the idea to make a film about the Netherlands because everybody was talking about the identity of the country because of the immigrants. They said that they have knocked our identity but we are all the same, we are all individuals and I thought of a means to tell this story. The Dutch government in the 90s started the programme of promoting Dutch architecture through commissioning embassies. A couple of new embassies developed in Africa and South America…

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Shopping Town USA – Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall

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Anette Baldauf, co-director of the film The Gruen Effect on the legacy of Victor Gruen  Victor Gruen was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century: He is regarded as the father of the shopping mall. How fundamentally his concept would change the world was something that not even this immigrant from Vienna, who was noted for thinking big, could have foreseen. In the nineteen fifties, Gruen built large-scale “shopping towns” in the suburban sprawl of the United States. Based on the model of European city centers they were not only to facilitate shopping but also to strengthen…

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My playground – interview

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Interview with Kaspar Astrup Schröder, director of the film My Playground, and Bjarke Ingels, founder of the Bjarke Ingels Group, Coppenhagen My Playground is really two films, it isn?t only a film about Parkour, it is also a film about architecture and urban space and the relationships between people and the space they live in. Architecture doesn?t normally get looked at this way.  Kaspar: When I started doing these test shoots with the Parkour teams I started composing my pictures according to the buildings and the space, with these guys moving within the space it became a totally different experience….

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Short Shots Budapest – decision of the jury

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Megvan a bejutott filmek listája! Blahangja | Belépni tilos | Duna Tanösvény | Hangos felületek | Hódítsuk vissza a várost! | Lánchuszár | Menet | Nagyvárosi régészet | Perception | Pesti Kornél | Roadblock | Shimada bácsi kalandjai: A poszt-BKV város | Síkvidéki downhill | Tanyavilág Budapesten | Ültess! A filmek bemutatására és a közönségszavazásra 2012. március 31-én, szombaton, 20:30-kor kerül sor a Kino Moziban, a díjátadó és ünneplés az Apacuka Varietében. Döntő a Kinoban március 31-én, szombaton fél 9-kor. További információ: http://filmnapok12.kek.org.hu/ssb/

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Think big, act small

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Report of Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival 2011 In March 2012, KÉK – Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre organizes Budapest Architecture Film Days for the fourth time in Toldi cinema. The Film Days were inspired by the Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival: its director, Jord den Hollander encouraged us to create our own festival on his 2005 visit to Budapest. This year Jord invited the Budapest team to Rotterdam, here is the report of the Festival.        The article is continued on hg.hu (in Hungarian): www.hg.hu/cikk/epiteszet/13306-think-big-act-small Huszár Daniella, Soltész Noémi

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Short Shots Budapest

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The Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre has opened its call for entries and will accept submissions of Budapest short length films for the 4th Budapest Architecture Film Days. We are expecting short films and video works focusing on the transformations of Budapest?s urban spaces and built environment, in a critical and problem-oriented way: pieces should be looking at significant changes in the urban landscape and structure, new ways of using the city and the appearance of new urban functions, reflecting on the defining characteristics, moving forces and consequences of these phenomena.  More information: http://filmnapok12.kek.org.hu/en/short-shots/

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