Documentary films on urban issues are the theme of the Wroclaw City Movie festival. It will feature productions that show the subject of the city from different perspectives: sociological, architectural or economic.
City Movie will take place from October 7 to 11 at the New Horizons Cinema in Wroclaw. This is the eighth edition of the festival. Its theme is "Great Plans." Issues such as urban planning and regulation, comprehensive design or the development of urban organisms will be taken on board. Viewers will have the opportunity to see the most interesting Polish and foreign film documentaries touching on these problems. There will also be discussions, meetings and city walks. The festival is also accompanied by an exhibition.
what we will see
Even before the opening of the festival, on Sunday, October 6, there will be a screening of the film "Dreamers of Cities" (dir. Joseph Hillel, 2018), combined with a lecture "Architect of Wroclaw" by Joanna Majczyk, a researcher of post-war architecture in Wroclaw. Meanwhile, the festival will open with the film "Experimental City." The author of this documentary is Chad Freidrichs, author of the famous film "Mit Pruitt Igoe." In "Experimental City" Freidrichs tells the story of the utopian vision of Athelstan Spilhaus - oceanographer, geophysicist and innovator. The city he designs seems tailor-made for the modern age and the climate crisis. The film will be followed by a discussion on "How to design cities in times of crises?". It will be attended by Paweł Jaworski, philosopher and urbanist, creator of the author's method of experimental urbanism combining research, design and participation, Agata Twardoch architect and urbanist associated with the Faculty of Architecture.urban planner associated with the Faculty of Architecture of the Silesian University of Technology, Jerzy Łątka architect and researcher associated with the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology, and Łukasz Medeksza cultural scientist and urban planner.
Festival team
© City Movie
The festival's offerings also include such films as "To Whom Does the City Belong?" (dir. Hans Christian Post, 2017) about the difficult search for identity in Berlin, "Utopia of a New City" (dir. Christopher Ian Smith, 2017) about the new post-war city of Basildon, and a portrait of Dresden in the documentary "Dresden. Architecture and Politics" (directed by Hans Christian Post, 2020). Also noteworthy is a film block devoted to the 1970 Art Symposium in Wroclaw. This pioneering event was aimed at developing a new architectural and urban planning formula in Wroclaw.
The festival will include architectural walks
© City Movie
Not just movies
Festival participants can enjoy a wide range of accompanying events. There will be architectural walks around Borek, South, Książ Mały and Książ Wielki. Workshops have also been prepared under the slogan "Everyone is an urbanist/urbanist - building a city as a team game." Registration is required for the walks and workshops. During the festival, it will also be possible to see an exhibition entitled. "Night in Milan." It is inspired by a work from the canon of film classics "Night" by Michelangelo Antonioni. As the creators of the exhibition write:
"The exhibition on 'Night' will become an opportunity for us to return to questions about the future of modern cities." The film's main characters Giovanni and Lidia are going through a relationship crisis and, like the other characters, are reflecting on their role in society, on what artists will leave behind and what engineers will leave behind. The images of the changing Milan in Antonioni's painting underscore their emotional state, the social disruption after the war and the contrasts in the emerging modern city - streets in ruins on one side, modernism and street hustle and bustle caused by traffic on the other.
Helena Postawka-Lech
