Located 2,000 kilometres from the Amazon and 18 hours from Rio, the city of Brasília – the capital of Brazil – is a mythical place: a concrete utopia born out of the desert. In 1956 visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer and urbanist Lúcio Costa invented an urban plan and structures that would attempt to micromanage the daily activity of human life. The goal was to create the space that would birth “the new Brazilian citizen”. Now the stark beauty of the city acts as a backdrop to isolation, changing values, and the dynamic power and politics of today's Brazil. Brasília: Life After Design takes us to a city rarely seen by the international viewer: what is it like to live in someone else’s idea?
The feature-length documentary will be screened alongside two short films on modernist architecture in Sheffield:
Elevation
Made by artist and filmmaker Esther Johnson in 2009, Elevation is a unique portrait of Sheffield’s in/famous Park Hill estate, created during an eclipse period between clearance and reinvention. It's a poignant memento of a turning point in the estate’s history, as the last embers of its communal ideal flicker out, and the first glimmers of its coming second life can be sensed.
Sheffield Modern Stories
Modernist architecture often divides opinion – aesthetically, socially, politically. Wherever you stand on it, though, you can’t deny that these structures mean something unique to the people who live, work and spend their leisure time in them. In this short film Sam Benham, a recent Graphic Design graduate from Sheffield Institute of Arts, shares personal stories of three buildings in Sheffield – some now demolished, others updated. If a building plays such an integral part in the local community, can it ever truly be replaced?
Doors open 1:30pm, films start 2pm.
This screening is part of the Sheffield Modern architecture weekender.