Love, anarchy and architecture – Helsinki International Film Festival features a powerful documentary on construction and destruction
Architecton, director Viktor Kossakovsky
Architecton sets untouched nature and the human-built environment side by side – and in opposition. The film reflects on different scales of time, from thousands of years to just a few hours, and what can be built or destroyed within them.
While awaiting November’s Ark Rex architecture film festival, audiences in Helsinki can already tune into the spirit of architectural documentaries, as the Love & Anarchy film festival presents Russian director Victor Kossakovsky’s striking new documentary Architecton.
This poetic film follows Italian architect Michele de Lucchi as he contemplates humanity’s relationship with nature, construction, time, and destruction. A stone-built magic circle and a spiraling quarry are scaled into a circle drawn on paper a sign of humankind’s planning and desire to build, even though building new first requires destruction. Carefully balanced stone sculptures topple into the builder’s arms, while quarry explosions unleash a hypnotic, thunderous cascade of rock.
A human lifetime, a few hours, 4,000 years. In Baalbek, Lebanon, ancient Hellenistic and Roman temples thousands of years old have been left to weather in peace, while a residential area built alongside them was destroyed in moments during the 2006 Lebanon War. Architect de Lucchi poses sharp questions: Why do we destroy more than we build? Why do we construct ugliness, when we could create something beautiful?
The annual Love & Anarchy film festival has been organised by the Helsinki International Film Festival association since 1991. This year’s festival will take place from 18 to 28 September. Architecton will be screened at Kino Regina in Oodi, on 19 September at 21:00 and 28 September at 14:15. The running time is 98 minutes.
The festival’s ticket sales open on 4 September. See the full programme here.
