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Today, three films at HotDocs which may be of interest to UrbanToronto members:
Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio
Citizen Architect chronicles the work of the Rural Studio, an outreach of Auburn University’s school of architecture, in rural Alabama... and I have no hesitation in saying that every architect, architecture student, and every amateur architectural philosopher and enthusiast here on UrbanToronto would really enjoy a viewing of this engaging film. The late Samuel Mockbee was an idealistic Mississippi architect, full of ideas but short on commissions, who left his practice to teach at the University of Auburn. Once there he created a field course in designing and building for poor families and needy communities in the most impoverished corners of rural Alabama. The resultant small projects are remarkable for their imaginative and inexpensive solutions, and their attention to the needs of the individuals who will live, work, and play in them. The rural Alabamans themselves, like Music Man, pictured above at right, are a fun, colourful bunch too, and add much to the film. Featuring interviews with both Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, and de-constructivist architect cum Yale architecture prof Peter Eisenmann, a pair who represent two opposing ends of the social spectrum, Citizen Architect presents us with a unique set of projects to enjoy, and a unique architectural philosophy to consider. Highly recommended.
Small Wonders
For anyone who loves Mom-and-Pop shops, or for anyone who wonders how small, independent stores get by in a modern world that tends to shop big box and mass market, Small Wonders is an open window into that world, and a quiet paean to it. Director Tally Abecassis’s Montreal-based film was shot over the course of a decade in a local hardware store (above), a watch repair shop, and a portrait studio. The film is paced at a relaxed speed, gradually revealing the work and lives of our three quirky, and oddly endearing small business owners, creating intimate portraits of them as they fight to hold off big box encroachment in particular and the march of time in general. Will small independent stores survive? Small Wonders gives the viewer some material with which to better to mull over that question.
Neighbours
From my point-of-view, Neighbours is not a good title: it tells you next to nothing, and to me sounded like it was something either entirely more Middle-American, or possibly an English sitcom. This film is neither however, for Neighbours takes place in Cairo’s plush downtown neighbourhood called Garden City, built in the 1920s to rival the best neighbourhoods of London and Paris. Garden City’s mansions are now dwindling in number thanks to tall new apartment blocks, the fortification of the American embassy in the heart of the district, and changing social conditions in Egypt. The film interviews 30 locals from all walks of life and economic strata; from the Egyptian upper class to the lower, from French expats to English diplomats, from Syrian refugees to the American Ambassador. Neighbours starts by mostly focusing on Garden City’s early 20th century glory, and then moves on to present day troubles and concerns for the neighbourhood's future. Those who spend their time considering how cities work would do well to get a ticket for Neighbours. With so much going on here - Egypt’s changing sociological, economic, and religious times, alternately cherished and reviled memories of its colonial past, the pressures of urban intensification, the intrusion of fortress America - the film is a fascinating study of a beautiful but embattled urban neighbourhood and its people.
Follow this link to HotDoc's schedule to get up-to-date times and ticketing information for these films!
posted: 2010-04-26 04:09:12
