CPH:DOX 2024 – Architecton

Few filmmakers make films as visionary as Victor Kossakovsky (‘Gunda’, ‘Aquarela’). His new epic, which premiered in the main competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, is a cinematic exploration of thousands of years of architectural history. From the two-thousand-year-old ruins of the temple city of Baalbek in Lebanon to the ruined apartment blocks of Ukraine, and all the way down to the geological layers where the building blocks of civilisation literally come from. ‘Architecton’ is an impressive, philosophical study and an almost dialogue-free work on an epic scale. But there is also room for a visit to the Italian architect Michele de Lucchi, who carefully and thoughtfully constructs a symbolic stone circle in his garden together with two craftsmen – a visual and not least temporal motif that informs the rest of the film. Civilisations come and go, and even our own modern age is not immune to disasters, whether natural or man-made.