Event
Architecton
“A raw, beautiful and demanding essay on the fate of our collective home.” – Washington Post
“Architecton is quite the transcendent experience and makes you view the world in a more aware, alert light.” – San Jose Mercury News
“As Kossakovsky’s contemplative images envelop the vision and spark the mind, his film mines profundity from beneath our feet.” – AV Club
95% on Rotten Tomatoes
From filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky (Gunda, Aquarela) comes an epic, intimate and poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction — and offer hope for survival and a way forward.
Centering on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele de Lucci, Kossakovsky uses the circle to reflect on the rise and fall of civilizations, capturing breathtaking imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to AD 60, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023.
Rocks and stone connect the disparate societies, from ghostly monoliths stuck in the earth to tragic heaps of concrete rubble waiting to be hauled off and repurposed anew. Through Kossakovsky’s inquisitive lens, the grandeur and folly of humanity and its precarious relationship with nature posits the urgent question: How do we build, and how can we build better, before it’s too late?
