We 11 Nov 09
IDFA Film – Borgate and House of the Knights
At the request of the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR), the IDFA has compiled a special series of documentaries on the city which will be shown during the Biennale. This week's features are Lotte Schreiber's Borgate and House of the Knights by Marina Goldovskaya.
Title: Borgate (Oostenrijk, 2008, 15 min)
Regie: Lotte Schreiber
A meticulous cinematic exploration into the formic language of Don Bosco, a Roman housing project designed during fascism.
The frames of the film Borgate are as rigid as the facades, streets and squares of the late-modernist neighbourhood Don Bosco on the southeastern edge of Rome. In its formic language, Don Bosco looks a lot like other European expansion housing projects from the 1940s and 1950s, but the master plan was designed under Mussolini back in 1931. And as we hear Anna Magnani's character in Mamma Roma put it, it's a neighbourhood for the people. But the aesthetic misfired: equality was felt as anonymity, rationality as inhumanity, The wide squares and everything else that was designed for giant parades are practically empty. This is where the city ends and no-man's-land begins.
Title: House of the Knights (Rusland/Frankrijk, 1993, 59 min)
Regie: Maria Goldovskaya
House of the Knights depicts the history of the Muscovite house as a commune, as a communal living place according to communist ideals.
House of the Knights is at 35 Arbat Street in Moscow. It used to be the Russian princess Kozlovskaya's residence, before it was inhabited by eight families during half a century. Nowadays it accomodates the Ministry of Culture. It depicts the history of the Muscovite house as a commune, as a communal living place according to communist ideals. A house where people lived together, cooked together; a house where the betrayer of a Jewish man stayed under the same roof as the man's children who had stayed behind. Interviews with former inhabitants are combined with historical newsreels showing the house, but also with fragments from a feature film by Lenin's brother in arms and Minister of Culture, Lunacharsky.
+31 (0) 10 440 1342
The Hood, NAI
Wednesday 11 Nov, 3 pm
Sunday 15 Nov, 12 noon
Entrance: day ticket 4th IABR/NAi
