Documentary auteur Victor Kossakovsky will attend DocsBarcelona (May 2 to 12) with Architecton, the final part of his ‘planet’ trilogy, following ¡Vivan las antípodas! (2011) and Aquarela (2018), both of which were selected for past DocsBarcelona programmes. Architecton will enjoy its Spanish premiere in Barcelona.
Architecton is “an epic and poetic meditation on architecture that at the same time offers hope for survival,” writes the festival of the film which world-premiered at Berlinale 2024. “The Russian master revisits architectural practices of the present and the past to warn of the ecological impact of cement.”
Starting with a project by Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, Kossakovsky reflects on the rise and fall of civilizations, in the process capturing breath-taking images, from the rubble of the temple of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to 60 AD, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023. “Through Kossakovsky’s inquisitive look at humanity and its precarious relationship with nature, the film poses an urgent question: how do we build and how can we build better before it is too late?” the festival writes.
Anna Petrus, artistic director of DocsBarcelona, emphasises that “the festival has always accompanied the films of Victor Kossakovsky, who returns with a sensorially shocking film that questions the use that human beings make of natural resources to build and, unfortunately, also to destroy.” Petrus further observes that Architecton is a documentary that “will make us travel, in every sense, and also ask relevant questions about how we treat the planet.”
Kossakovsky has won more than a hundred awards at national and international festivals, began his career in 1978 in Leningrad as an assistant cameraman, assistant director and editor. After studying screenwriting and directing in Moscow, he directed his first film Losev in 1989. Three years later his documentary The Belovswon the VPRO Joris Ivens Award and Audience Award at IDFA, among others. In 2011, ¡Vivan las antípodas!was selected as the opening film of the Venice Film Festival. Aquarela opened DocsBarcelona in 2019.
