Learning to Unlearn | Arquiteturas Film Festival 2024
27.06 - 30.06.2024
The 11th edition of the Arquiteturas Film Festival took place across multiple venues in the city of Porto, including Batalha Centro de Cinema, Canal 180, Casa Comum, Circo de Ideias, INSTITUTO, and Térmita, featuring a selection of films, debates, installations, and tours. Under the theme "Learning to Unlearn", this edition presented four carefully curated sections: Guest Directos Programme, Official Programme, Experimental Programme, and Portugal Special Programme. Each section offered a unique contribution to the festival's theme, providing diverse perspectives for the conception of new architectural imaginaries. This was the fourth edition organised by INSTITUTO, directed by architect Paulo Moreira, with notable participation from Bêka & Lemoine as Guest Directors and LOCUMENT as curators of the Official Programme.
The festival began with a soft opening at Circo de Ideias, featuring a debate between Ila Bêka, Louise Lemoine, and Maria Pestana, chief curator of the Architecture Center at MAC/CCB Museum. This was followed by the Opening Session at Batalha, with welcome remarks from the festival director and a screening of 'Rehab (from rehab)' by Bêka & Lemoine. The evening concluded with the Opening Party at INSTITUTO, which included the inauguration of the 'Stories of Spaces' installation by Bêka & Lemoine and a musical performance by resident artist Bonnie Bopela.
Kai Fernandes kicked off the second day of the festival with the Africana Porto guided tour, offering a different experience from the usual tours provided by tourist agencies, showcasing the city from an African perspective. We then gathered at Casa Comum for a short film session in partnership with the Cinalfama film festival. In the afternoon, Térmita hosted the inauguration of the 'Invisible Territories' installation by Locument, with a guided tour conducted by the authors Romea Muryn and Francisco Lobo. Later, we met at Batalha for two sessions: 'Burial' by Emilija Škarnulytė and 'The Sense of Tuning' by Beka & Lemoine.
The third day of the festival began with a guided tour by Pedro Bandeira along Porto's metro line, aiming to draw attention to one of the areas with the most potential for future development: the eastern zone and the Fânzeres line. In the early afternoon, we gathered at Canal180 for a guided tour of the installation created by ADS Eleven students from the Royal College of Art, tutored by Locument. Later, we met at Casa Comum for a session featuring films by Banga Coletivo, Cartografia Negra, Margarida Waco, Day Rodrigues, and Juliana Vicente. The day ended at Batalha with the screening of 'Tokyo Ride' by Bêka & Lemoine and 'Taming the Garden' by Salomé Jashi.
The final day of the festival began with the debate “Back to the Future” with Yolana Lemos (Banga Colectivo) and Bonnie Bopela, moderated by João Queirós (Instituto Sociologia - FLUP), linking decolonisation projects in a quest to bridge architecture and society. This was followed by a session with a series of short films selected by Locument. At the Closing Session, the film 'Skin of Glass' was presented, with the presence of the director Denise Zmekhol. To conclude, Canal 180 hosted the soft closing with the screening of the film 'Habitar' and a debate with the director Joaquin Mora, architect Ana Neiva, resident Sandra Amorim, and Francisco Lobo from Locument.
The festival managed to attract a large and diverse audience, both local and international, from the fields of architecture, visual arts, education, and the general public. This edition affirmed the Arquiteturas Film Festival as a platform for discussing pressing issues of architecture, the city, the territory, and society as a whole.
