Where Life Happens
Arquiteturas Film Festival 2023
27.06 - 01.07.2023

Arquiteturas Film Festival 2023 took place in Porto for the second time, reaffirming its relevance as an international platform for discussing and disseminating architecture. This year’s theme, Where Life Happens, reflects on architecture and the people inhabiting it and highlights the discipline’s role in providing a backdrop for human interaction.

The festival programme had three main sections: Official Programme, Guest Institution Programme and Competition Programme. Organised by INSTITUTO, the festival was being held at a variety of venues in Porto: Batalha Centro de Cinema, Casa Comum, INSTITUTO, Mercado do Bolhão, Albergues do Porto and Circo de Ideias.

For the first time, part of the festival programme was being hosted by the renovated Batalha Centro de Cinema. At the opening session, the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), this year’s guest institution, premiered the latest film in the trilogy conceived by Giovanna Borasi and directed by Daniel Schwartz, Where We Grow Older (2023). In addition to their film selection, CCA also presented an installation at INSTITUTO, featuring materials related to the use of cinema and moving images in curatorial projects. As part of the Official Programme, director Sara Nunes premiered her documentary Back to the city (2023), which explored the recently renovated Mercado do Bolhão. Both sessions filled the hall at Batalha and were supplemented by debates and guided tours of the buildings. They tackled topics such as the importance of caring for vulnerable communities, the issue of housing precarity and the growing economic pressures affecting urban settings in different parts of the world.

In the competition section of the festival, 19 films from 16 different countries were screened at Casa Comum. The jury chose the winning films in four categories: Social Awareness, Best Documentary, Best Experimental Film and Best Fiction Film. There was also an Audience Award based on a public vote. On the final day of the festival, the prizewinning films will be screened in two sessions at Batalha Centro de Cinema. The screenings were preceded by a review of the last 10 years of Arquiteturas Film Festival, led by Sofia Mourato (AFF founder) and Paulo Moreira (AFF director), and a prize ceremony attended by members of the jury.

As part of the Official Programme, the closing session for this year’s Arquiteturas Film Festival featured a screening of the film A Morte de uma Cidade (2022) by João Rosas, an urban diary depicting everyday life on a construction site in the heart of Lisbon’s Bairro Alto.

www.arquiteturasfilmfestival.com

Organisor:
INSTITUTO

Guest Institution:
CCA - Canadian Centre for Architecture

Director:
Paulo Moreira

Programme coordinator:
Raquel Pais

Competition coordinator:
Sofia Mourato

Project management:
Sara Pinheiro

Selection committee:
Sofia Mourato
Barbara Gocníková
Daniela Silva
Vasco Mendes

Jury:
Didier Fiúza Faustino
Francisco Lobo
Cristina Monteiro
Nuno Coelho
Sara Nunes

Guest artist:
Toy Boy

Production:
Mira Samonig
Thaís Andrade

Production assistance:
Elisa Alvarez
Joana Graça
Nuno Silva
Rossana Nando

Communication consultant:
Julia Albani

Translation:
Eleanor Staniforth

Photography:
Ivo Tavares Studio
Raquel Rocha

Graphic design:
João Queirós