Film festival an opportunity to imagine city’s evolution

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This article was published 19/03/2024 (566 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This year’s Architecture + Design Film Festival presents an opportunity for viewers to take in a world of urbanist ideas through international films and visiting filmmakers.

Festival founder and curator Susan Algie also sees the six-day event as an opportunity to imagine a better Winnipeg.

“We have to learn to demand better design, better cities and the more we see other experiences, the more knowledgeable we’ll be,” she says. “There’s always lessons to learn about what might work and what might not work, and you hope that people are inspired that by doing their own small thing, it’s going to contribute to a bigger change.”

Now in its 13th year, the event remains the only film fest in Canada dedicated to the impact of architecture and design on everyday life.

Things kick off tonight with a special screening of Diaspora at the West End Cultural Centre. Directed by Winnipeg’s Deco Dawson, the award-winning film follows a young Ukrainian immigrant as she navigates a new life in the North End. The event will include a panel discussion with the filmmaker about the city’s history as an architectural mecca and its current disrepair.

This edition of A+DFF features 21 films and two world premières: More Than a Museum, which follows the design and construction of the brand new Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo; and Lewerentz, a profile on the renowned yet reclusive Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz.

Algie’s goal as curator is to find documentaries and movies that are entertaining, speak broadly about the subject matter and aren’t widely available.

“I try to show films that you can’t find on a streaming service,” she says, adding that Canadian content is often hard to come by.

“And we interpret design fairly broadly — it could be fashion, it could be furniture, it could be graphic design.”

An example of the latter is Jane Davis Doggett: Wayfinder in the Jet Age, a documentary about the woman behind the widely used directional graphics that guide people through large public spaces, such as airports and arenas. Floridian filmmaker Pat Williams will be in attendance during Friday’s screening.

Other visiting creators include Jamie Kastner, director of Charlotte’s Castle, a film about the fight to protect a quirky Toronto landmark, as well as Max Amerongen and Trevor Boddy, who will be hosting discussions about the importance of Canadian architect Arthur Erickson.

“It would be wonderful to keep expanding so we can have more complementary activities, such as filmmaker panels,” Algie says.

The festival takes place at Dave Barber Cinematheque, the Millennium Library and the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation’s new office space on Lombard Avenue. There are free noontime screenings Wednesday through Saturday at various venues.

The annual ArchiShorts competition runs Saturday and features 13 two-minute-long films about the built environment made by amateur filmmakers. Eight of this year’s submissions are locally made.

“We’ve been trying to build the number of people locally who submit. This year it really grew,” Algie says.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

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