July 7, Brno

Metro stanice Líšeň/Jírova>18:00/7/7/2012 / tram stop nr.8 (49.208981,16.686548)

The Brno edition of the Central European Architecture Film Exchange presents a selection of shorts on the Central European City. The films tell about the daily life of prefab housing projects, the value of functionalist architecture, the memory of old, desappearing neighborhoods and the way modernist architecture can be approached by photography and animation.

Most, dir. Petr Zikmund, Czech rep. 6? The city Most was destroyed for coal. Poetic movie remake of the old socialistic propaganda. Better new life – new modern houses. Between September 30 and October 27, 1975, the church was moved a distance of 841.1 meters at a velocity of 1?3 centimeters per minute to the vicinity of the old hospital with a small church of the Holy Spirit, and it was set on an iron-concrete two-storied foundation. After the move was completed, restoration work went on until 1988, and the church was solemnly consecrated again in 1993.

Lekerekítés/Rounding Off, dir. L. Polyák, Z. Keserue, Á. D. Dénes, Hungary 2006-2007, 14? A video (made in different phases with Zsolt Keserue and Ágnes Dénes) about the transformation of the interiors of prefabricated housing estates. Through interviews and research, the video documents attempts and practices to domesticate and alter radically planned spaces. The video has been shown in Budapest (Budapest Filmfestival), Berlin (Neuer Berliner Kunstverein), New York (Hungarian Cultural Institute), Pécs (Európa-ház), Bangalore (Shumuka Gallery) and New Delhi (Lalit Kala Academy) and Rotterdam Documentary Film Festival.

Petržalka Identity, dir. Juraj Chlpik, Slovakia 2010, 25? The short documentary Petržalka Identity is a follow-up to an exhibition of the same name, presented by Juraj Chlpík on Bratislava?s New Bridge in 2006. With its 130,000 inhabitants, Petržalka is the biggest neighborhood in Bratislava. Three generations have grown up here since it was built. People are dying and being born, a new chapter of history is being written, one that is not perceptible from the outside, but only from the inside, from the point of view of our memories and our intimate personal stories. The movie portrays several people living in this featureless world of concrete, trying to find a place for themselves in this jungle of blocks of flats where they could put down roots. The photography exhibition that preceded the movie was installed in such a way that portraits were lined up on the left side of the bridge, while the photos from the respective flats of these people were put on the right side. In Petržalka Identity Juraj Chlpík opted for a similar method: the impressions expressed by the locals are accompanied with pictures from their flats.

Rahova, dir. David Možný, Czech rep. 2008 6? This video is based on records taken in Rahova housing estate in Bucharest, Romania. It was chosen as the place at the end of utopia. The video recycles and deconstructs the familiar scenery turning it into the distraction. The pre-cast 70s architecture – fighting with its own decay – is facing the digital desintagration. Camera slowly flows through the the blocks of houses, the place is empty, just the surface of the concrete housing machine.Through the digitalasing the place, which so deeply roots in its own heavyweight rational reality, it turns into the fragile dreamy construction.

Metropolitan Archelogy, dir. Gruppo Tökmag és Kárpáti György Mór, Hungary 2011, 8? Metropolitan Archeology’, by Gruppo Tökmag, zooms in on everyday urban places and objects that have been damaged, weathered or changed functions through the years. The many layers of posters on a disused billboard, an artistic pattern of chewing gum on the sidewalk, a makeshift wooden fence around a growing tree. The scientific, dry explanation gives the film a comical aspect.

Za Zelazna Brama (Behind the Iron Gate) dir. Heidrun Holzfeind, Poland 2009, 55? The film portrays everyday life in the communist era housing estate Za Zelazna Brama (?Behind the Iron Gate?). The housing estate was built by a team of architects Jerzy Czyż, Jan Furman, Andrzej Skopiński between 1965-1972 in the center of Warsaw on the ruins of the so-called Small Ghetto. The 19 blocks, each 16 floors high, are based on modern rational principles. They were occupied by workers, functionaries, academics and the Warsaw intelligentsia. In the 1970ies the housing estate was considered a symbol of Polish socialist prosperity and technological progress.

The Slovakian National Gallery dir. Barbara Zavarská, Aleš Šedivec, Slovakia 2010, 7? From a series on young Slovak architecture heritage – The Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava.

The Slovakian broadcasting building dir. Barbara Zavarská, Aleš Šedivec, Slovakia 2010 From a series on young Slovak architecture heritage – The Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava.

No Entry dir. Márk Péter Vargha, Hungary 2011, 4? The photographs have been taken in an abandoned soviet military hospital. There is no electricity, so I had to use my own battery-operated flashgun. I have only one flash, so every light is on a different photo. I made three exposures of all the lights with R-G-B color filters. I put together them during the post process. This method also has the advantage to freely combine the lights, and to make an animation from the combinations.

The event is organized by 4am Forum for Architecture and Media in cooperation with KÉK – Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre and Wonderland.

The screening is supported by the International Visegrad Fund.