1. Cirque Pinder Jean Richard (Cirque Pinder Jean Richard)
(Cirque Pinder Jean Richard)
2. Palace for the People (Дворците на народа)
The life and death of socialist architectural monsters. An epic fairy-tale in five chapters.
It has an average vote of 8.7 on TMDB.
3. Folkhemmets Estetik (Folkhemmets Estetik)
Documentary about the architecture of the Swedish housing boom in the 1960s and how it's viewed today.
4. Paname: The Ghost of the Great Frenchman (Paname, le fantôme du Grand Français)
Ferdinand de Lesseps, known as “The Great Frenchman”, will embark in the greatest adventure of his life: To unite the Pacific and Atlantic oceans through a Canal in the Isthmus of Panama – without knowing that this will cost him his reputation, thousands of innocent lives and the biggest financial scandal of all time, up to that point: the famous “Scandal of Panama”. Today, the French capital is known as “Paname”.
5. Abe's Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln
From the time he was a young boy roaming the forests of the unsettled Midwest, Abraham Lincoln knew in his heart that slavery was deeply wrong. The passion for humanity that defined Lincoln's life shines through in this portrait of a truly great American president.
6. Brasilia, Contradictions of a New City (Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova)
In 1967, de Andrade was invited by the Italian company Olivetti to produce a documentary on the new Brazilian capital city of Brasília. Constructed during the latter half of the 1950s and founded in 1960, the city was part of an effort to populate Brazil’s vast interior region and was to be the embodiment of democratic urban planning, free from the class divisions and inequalities that characterize so many metropolises. Unsurprisingly, Brasília, Contradições de uma Cidade Nova revealed Brasília to be utopic only for the wealthy, replicating the same social problems present in every Brazilian city.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
7. David Macaulay: Pyramid
How did ancient Egyptians build the Great Pyramid at Giza, joining two million blocks of heavy stone with amazing precision? Who were the leaders who built these enormous structures, and what did these tombs signify? Host David Macaulay explores the history, mythology, and religions of Egypt's people, combining live footage and animation. Take a rare look at the mummy of Ramses II and buried treasure in the sacred Valley of the Kings.
8. Staré Valašsko (Staré Valašsko)
A short film about traditional crafts and culture that can still be found in the Wallachian mountains today.
9. Brisa Solar (Brisa Solar)
Mozambique 1974 - the European name of the capital Lourenço Marques was deleted and replaced by Maputo. Between the delicacy and the apocalyptic, Brisa Solar reveals the little secrets of an African city that was born from a modernist dream, which led a revolution and which today sees its cultural heritage and threatened by Chinese capitalism.
10. Made in Ilima
In the center of Equator Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Ilima community remains one of the most isolated in the world. They have coexisted with endangered wildlife in their surrounding forest for generations, but as the pace of development has increased, this fragile ecosystem has suffered. They partnered with the African Wildlife Foundation and our architecture firm, MASS Design Group, in 2012 to create a new conservation focused primary school and community center. This film documents our collective building process - one aimed at leveraging local craft and ecological knowledge towards education, preservation, and beauty.
11. Race d'Ep! (Race d'Ep!)
"Race d’Ep!" was made by the “father of queer theory,” Guy Hocquenghem, in collaboration with radical queer filmmaker and provocateur Lionel Soukaz. The film traces the history of modern homosexuality through the twentieth century, from early sexology and the nudes of Baron von Gloeden to gay liberation and cruising on the streets of Paris. Influenced by the groundbreaking work of Michel Foucault on the history of sexuality and reflecting the revolutionary queer activism of its day, "Race d’Ep!" is a shockingly frank, sex-filled experimental documentary about gay culture emerging from the shadows.
It has an average vote of 4.8 on TMDB.
12. Ben Building: Mussolini, Monuments and Modernism
Having previously investigated the architecture of Hitler and Stalin's regimes, Jonathan Meades turns his attention to another notorious 20th-century European dictator, Mussolini. His travels take him to Rome, Milan, Genoa, the new town of Sabaudia and the vast military memorials of Redipuglia and Monte Grappa. When it comes to the buildings of the fascist era, Meades discovers a dictator who couldn't dictate, with Mussolini caught between the contending forces of modernism and a revivalism that harked back to ancient Rome. The result was a variety of styles that still influence architecture today. Along the way, Meades ponders on the nature of fascism, the influence of the Futurists, and Mussolini's love of a fancy uniform.
It has an average vote of 6.5 on TMDB.
13. Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm
"What we were trying to do was the ultimate form of architecture, which was predicting how society would use space, land and time." Curtis Schreier, ANT FARM Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm is the first film to consider the work of the renegade 1970s art/architecture collective Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch. Radical architects, video pioneers, and mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers created a body of deeply subversive multidisciplinary work that questioned the boundaries of architecture and everything else in the process. Incorporating breathtaking archival video, new footage shot over ten years and animation based on zany period sketches, this film is about the joy of creation in a time when there were no limits. —Beth Federici
14. Goff
GOFF explores the life of architect Bruce Goff, one of the most innovative yet forgotten American architects of the 20th century, and the path that lead to the destruction and restoration of his memory and dwellings.
15. Alvar Aalto: Technology and Nature (Alvar Aalto: tekniikka ja luonto)
The Finnish architect Alvar Aalto is one of the great figures of modern architecture, ranked alongside Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. This film analyses Aalto’s uniquely successful resolution of the demands and possibilities created by new technology and construction materials with the need to make his buildings sympathetic both to their users and to their natural surroundings. His inventive use of timber in particular represents both a reference to the forest landscape of Finland and a building material that is ‘warm’ and extremely adaptable. Filmed in Finland, Italy, Germany and the USA, this documentary shows how the Finnish natural environment and art traditions were essential elements in Aalto’s pioneering harmonization of technology and nature.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
16. The President (Le président)
Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo's newest work uses split-screens to present a fake documentary in which "the president" has disappeared; talk-show hosts, rivals, politicians and even rappers chime in on what may have occurred, and what their president for life has—or has not—done for Cameroon.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
17. La France romane (La France romane)
(La France romane)
18. Vengeance of the Three Musketeers (Les trois mousquetaires: Tome II - La vengeance de Milady)
To avenge her defeat and with the help of the Cardinal's army leader Rochefort, the treacherous Milady de Winter kidnaps both D'Artagnan and Constance, in order to spur a war between the French and the English, as per the Cardinal's wish.
It has an average vote of 6.8 on TMDB.
19. Dancing Before the Moon
Comprising new and archival footage, this film observes rituals performed by the South Asian, African, and Caribbean diaspora in Britain, demonstrating an appreciation of land, community values, and the universe we share with other species and planets.
20. Terre Adélie (Terre Adélie)
(Terre Adélie)