Africa features in SA film festival with a difference

The Architect Africa Film Festival 2007 is the first festival of its kind in South Africa. In collaboration with Cinema Nouveau screened by Jameson, the festival will be screening a selection of award-winning films at Cinema Nouveau in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town during August and September. A number of the films have African themes.

Given the speed at which the world is urbanising, and the importance that the built environment is assuming in general developmental settings, the festival will rapidly become an annual cultural event of considerable significance on the African continent and throughout the developing world.

It aims to create awareness of the need for thoughtful design and the important role of architecture in society. Other cultural events, such as exhibitions and debates that will take place at the festival, aim to create awareness of major issues in architecture and construction - such as capacity building, training and education; development that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable; and inclusive, innovative architecture that represents our society appropriately.

This is a rare opportunity to enjoy several fascinating films and documentaries on architecture and the built environment. The films that have been selected for the festival explore relationships between edifices, the lives of people who use them, and the environment in which they are located. If you are interested in design, space, structure, society and the environment, make a point of attending this inspiring event.

You will be able to see the following films:

1. Lagos: Wide and Close (2005) is an English documentary on Lagos. This city of high energy, mass population growth, dysfunction and danger has 14 million inhabitants. Architect Rem Koolhaas and a team of students from The Harvard Project on the City were followed over a two-year period as they researched one of the fastest growing cities on the continent. Lagos's population is expected to reach 24 million by 2020, making it the third largest city in the world. Every hour, 21 new inhabitants set out to start a life in the city, a life that is highly unpredictable and in which taking risks, networking and improvisation as essential strategies for survival. Koolhaas wanders through the city, talking to people and noting problems with water, electricity and traffic. Instead of judging the city as doomed, he interprets this "culture of congestion" in a refreshingly positive way, thereby creating a completely new concept of the big city.

2. The End of Suburbia (2004) is a documentary that takes a brutally honest and ironic look at American lifestyle. As we enter the early years of the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of suburban life. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue. The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will people react to the collapse of their suburban dream? Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW – individually and collectively – to avoid “the end of Suburbia”?

3. Contra's City (City of Contrasts) (1968) is a 40-minute comedy/ drama. Director Mambety's experimental cinema blends the narrative features of Western cinema with those of the oral tales of traditional African culture. His short and full-length films deal with the political, social and cultural issue of Africa. His production began in the Sixties with the short film Contra's City. In this film we are drawn through the city of Dakar in a horse-drawn cart, which is an often chaotic course through the residential districts of the city, full of contrasts: especially the architecture of the French colonialist juxtaposed against ancient African architecture.

4. One of the classics on the Festival is Fritz Lang's restored black-and-white silent movie Metropolis (1927). There are multiple versions of this futuristic sci-fi Gothic horror and the original German version remained unseen for many decades. The film is set in the year 2027, in the extraordinary Gothic skyscrapers of a corporate city-state, the Metropolis of the title. Society has been divided into two rigid groups: one of planners or thinkers, who live high above the earth in luxury, and another of workers who live underground toiling to sustain the lives of the privileged. This spectacular film of a mechanised society founded in slavery is a study in dynamic visual and spatial effects.

5. The Portuguese film City of God (Cicada de Deus) (2002) was nominated for four Oscars and won several prestigious awards. City of God (Cicada de Deus) is a housing project that became one of the most dangerous places in Rio de Janeiro. The tale tells the stories of many characters as seen through the eyes of a singular narrator, Buscapé, a poor black youth too frail and scared to become an outlaw but also to smart to be content with underpaid, menial jobs. Buscapé soon discovers that he has a different perspective of reality. His redemption is that he has been given an artist's point of view as a keen-eyed photographer. It is through Buscapé's perspective of life that one begins to understand the complicated layers and humanity of a world that is apparently condemned to endless violence.

6. Several of Murray Grigor's award-winning documentaries on world-famous architects such as Sir John Soane, Carlo Scarpa, Gwathmey Siegel, Alexander 'Greek' Thomson, Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh can be viewed.

7. Die Tamat (2004) is a short South African film about acceptance and friendship in South Africa between two teenaged boys, one white Afrikaner and one a Muslim, living in the Bo-Kaap.

Dates and Cinema Nouveau screened by Jameson-venues for the Architect Africa Film Festival are:

* Johannesburg: 17 to 23 August 2007 – The Mall, Rosebank
* Durban: 24 to 30 August 2007 – Gateway Shopping Centre
* Cape Town: 31 August to 6 September 2007 – Cavendish Square

The event is endorsed by the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA), the South African Council for the Architectural Profession (SACAP), the Gauteng Film Office and the Gauteng Department of Arts, Culture and Heritage Services. It is being sponsored by, among others, the Cement & Concrete Institute, SACAP, Wallstreet Global Careers, and various architectural and urban planning practices.

For more information on this event, visit www.archinet.co.za  or www.sterkinekor.com (from August) for screening details on the film festival.