The problem of big city accommodation and housing attracted more attention in recent years. Though rising housing prices force out middle and low income residents from central areas, local communities respond in different ways to this process. Some organize self-defense communities, while others occupy or buy empty spaces, transforming them into modern residential collectives. Our protagonists have many obstacles on their way: being defenseless against authorities and real estate speculation, fear of neighbors, common hardship of decision-making and living in communities.

Estate, a Reverie (Andrea Luka Zimmerman, 2015, 84’)
Christiania – 40 Years of Occupation (Robert Lawson, Richard Jackman, 2014, 76’)
Inner Yard (Marika Pecháčková, 2014, 34’)
Life in the Coffin Factory (A. Dworschak, M. Rieper, C. Schmauszer, 2013, 48’)

With the changes in the market of architecture and the lasting effects of economic crisis, self-organizing, communal architecture-projects are becoming more and more important. Architects organize collectives and building camps, often without any contractors, in cooperation with local communities, considering local needs, recycling found materials and working with volunteers, and they try to revitalize parts of different cities or other settlements. Our choice of films – instead of presenting only built structures and objects – introduces initiatives, emphasizing the re-evaluation of spaces, the collectively created situations, the process of actual building, creating and the expertise behind it.

Maker (Mu-Ming Tsai, 2014, 66’)
H2T (Fabio Petronilli, 2014, 19’)
If You Build It (Patrick Creadon, 2013, 86’)

Modern urbanists always wanted to create indisputable frames for everyday life. But this ambition clearly weakened in the second part of the 20^th century. Instead of planning everyday life the idea of change gathered ground: with architects trying to find professional answers to the question, how such city structures could be created that adapt themselves to changing needs. Whereas Japanese metabolists tried to create the structures of the organic growth of a city, contemporary megalopolises grow without architects, their residents shape them. Our films are about the ever changing big cities and the architectural and non-architectural means of urban change.

Beyond Metabolism (Stefanie Gaus, Volker Sattel, 2014, 41’)
Microtopia (Jesper Wachtmeister, 2013, 52’)
Mumbai: Maximum City Under Pressure (Markus Kneer, Daniel Schwartz, 2014, 15’)
Gran Horizonte: Around the Day in 80 Worlds (Martin Andersson, Daniel Schwartz, 2014, 45’)

Though usually amusement parks and fairs were located on the periphery of cities, their role tends to be central as being predecessors for the showbiz cities of the 20^th and the theme parks of the 21^st century. In some cities traditional amusement parks have met decay, in others they occupied whole districts, sometimes cloaked as an independent city within a city. Our films show the shapeshifting amusement parks through movie set cities, theme parks and contemporary landscape architecture.

Short History of Abandoned Sets (Rä Di Martino, 2012, 9’)
The Machines of the Isle of Nantes (Dominique Deluze, 2013, 52’)
The Poor Man’s Follies (Micropunta, 2009, 58’)
Double Happiness (Ella Raidel, 2014, 74’)

Many modernist planner have seen the city as a machine, with their role to create free flow of people, objects and energy. The great modernization wave of the 20^th century redrawn traditional European cities with motorways, bridges and and overhead crossings. Tangeziale, towering above the century old Roman outskirts or the M25 and the A10, tying knots around London and Amsterdam: those are not simple infrastructures but embodiments of peculiar stories, situations and viewpoints, as one of our films says: „toxic architecture design terrorism”.

Infrastructure and Architecture: Unplanned Agency (Richard Raber, 2012, 4’)
Overpass (Emanuela Liverani, 2014, 6’)
Ring (Daryl Mulvihill, 2014, 8’)
London Orbital (Christopher Petit, Iain Sinclair, 2002, 77’)
Shorts – Overbuilt and Unfinished (91’)
—— Half Lives (Amy Lunn, 2014, 3’)
—— Lazika, Ghost City (Mariam Natroshvili, Detu Jintcharadze, 2014, 6’)
—— Home on Display (Laura Engelhardt, Nina Gschlößl, 2014, 18’)
—— Houses for All (Gereon Wetzel, 2013, 54’)
—— Adequate (Sinem Serap Duran, 2011, 10’)

We launched the Central European Architecture Film Exchange three years ago, a film-selection from this region, which developed to a significant collection over the years: our selection introduces the latest works. We get to know typical Eastern European stories – familiar to everybody living here but maybe inexplicable for someone from far away. How come that we don’t trust our neighbors, who we don’t know and they don’t want to know us either, not even cooperating on common issues? What does a public space mean, which is used only once a year, at a festivity? What kind of architectural aspects had the end of communism, when out of nowhere never before seen bank-buildings emerged from the ground, when borders and border stations disappeared, when communist buildings, statues and design solutions became purposeless and awkward? Strange yet familiar, self-reflective and funny stories from our neighbours.

Stone Guests (Paula Ďurinová, Petra Burzová, Jíři Majer, 2013, 11’)
Neon (Eric Bednarski, 2014, 52’)
Shorts – Eastern European fairy tales (100’)
—— Minor Border (Lisbeth Kovacic, 2014, 25’)
—— Temples of Money (Jana Pavlová, Martin Hrubý, 2013, 31’)
—— Resort (Martin Hrubý, 2014, 24’)
—— Superunit (Teresa Czepiec, 2014, 20’)

The classic genre within architect movies is the portrait. But, instead of portraits of architects we choose from portraits of buildings this year: from the school buildings of Herman Hertzberger, through Hans Scharoun’s music hall in Berlin, Centre Pompidou and brutalist masterpieces to the prison in Halden, Norway. We present unique buildings that became important parts of the lives of their residents or their users.

The School as City (Moniek van de Vall, Gustaaf Vos, 2012, 50’)
Month of Sundays (Callum Cooper, 2014, 4’)
Barbicania (Ila Bêka, Louise Lemoine, 2014, 90’)
Cathedrals of Culture (Wim Wenders, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Robert Redford, Margreth Olin, Karim Aïnouz, 2014, 165’)