Prioritising film experiences that push the boundaries of form and content, this film series will explore emerging practices in documentary cinema, focusing on hybrid, experimental and unconventional storytelling languages. The films share unusual methodologies, as well as overlapping points of interest in urban, social, and architectural themes.
Consisting of nine feature-length documentaries and one short film night, this will be an opportunity for cinephiles and those whose interests are piqued to engage with internationally acclaimed documentaries and filmmakers operating at the intersection of art, sociology, anthropology, and urbanism.
This course is connected to the Fall ’17 elective course ‘ACTION! On the Real City – Observe, Record, Edit: Oerlikon’
PROGRAMME
Sep 27 | Homo Sapiens (2016 1hr 34mn) by Nikolaus Geyrhalter | followed by drinks reception
Oct 04 |** Foreign Parts** (2010, 1hr 22mn) by J.P. Sniadecki and Véréna Paravel
Oct 11 | Rat Film (2016, 1hr 22mn) by Theo Anthony | followed by Q&#x26;A w/director
Oct 18 | Gran Horizonte (2013, 45mn) by Daniel Schwartz &#x26; Martin Andersson | followed by Q&#x26;A w/director
Nov 01 | Manakamana (2013, 2h 00mn) by Stephanie Spray &#x26; Pacho Velez | followed by Q&#x26;A w/director
Nov 08 | The Great Wall (2015, 1hr 14mn) by Tadgh O’Sullivan | followed by Q&#x26;A w/director
Nov 15 | The Seven Sisters Indoor Market (2016, 1h 35mn) by Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou &#x26; Marios Kleftakis | followed by Q&#x26;A w/director
Nov 22 | Eldorado XXI (2016, 2h05mn) by Salomé Lamas | followed by Q&#x26;A w/director
Nov 29 | The Iron Ministry (2014, 1hr 13mn) by J.P. Sniadecki
Dec 06 | Shorts Night: Hotel 22, Entremundo + Student Shorts | followed by drinks reception

Experimental Documentary Film Series

The City Through The Lens

Teaching

Start 25.09.2017
Through a combination of practical exercises in video and audio techniques in parallel with the study of seminal observation-driven texts like ‘The Social Life of Small Urban Places’ (Whyte) and ‘Learning from Las Vegas’ (Ventouri and Brown), this course aims to equip students with the basic tools and core principles to create short but complex portraits of urban space.
This approach will be applied to the case study of Oerlikon, an area that has undergone multiple transformations in scale and typology over time, resulting in a mosaic of mixed industry, high and low-density housing, mobility infrastructures, and cultural fabrics.
Using widely available recording tools and editing software, students will develop short video or audio works of about 3-5 minutes.
An optional Architecture and Urbanism Film Series running in parallel to this course will provide an opportunity for interested students to triangulate their learning with viewings of classic and experimental documentary work.

Observe. Record. Edit.

Action! On The Real City

21.10.2017 - 29.10.2017
What is the urban and architectural strategy for an emerging Bogotá?
Bogotá’s inner city was long characterized by chaotic urban development, which led to great inequality and informality. Today, Colombia’s capital is globally recognized for its urban innovation and social justice, an urban transformation put in place by a series of three consecutive mayors who vastly changed the face of the city. This emergent urbanism, produced at the intersection of top-down planning and bottom-up improvisation, cannot be meaningfully addressed by traditional planning models and demands critical investigations into the future vision of inner city Bogotá.
Students will travel to Bogotá as an extension of the Urban-Think Tank Design Studio to investigate the architecture, urbanism, culture, and social exchange in Bogotá with a specific focus on public spaces and park systems. City and architectural tours, museum visits, lectures and talks from local experts will constitute the majority of the trip. With representatives from the City of Bogotá and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, we will take part in a series of on-site mapping workshops to collect urban ideas and input from residents, interdisciplinary experts, community groups, NGOs, and the private sector.

New Typologies to Reclaim Public Space

Urban Laboratory

15-16 November
This workshop introduced numerous media-related research methodologies, suggesting new pathways towards audiovisual literacy based ethnography methods. Using references from Harvard’s ‘Sensory Ethnography Lab’ to sequential photo narratives to feature-length documentary films shot on smartphones, the workshop gave students the basic tools to begin thinking about using media in a variety of ways.
The workshop involved a short audiovisual exercise using smartphones as primary media tools. Students were asked to put their learnings into immediate practice in the surrounding area, presenting to the workshop at the end of the session.

Location	Valencia, Spain
Team	Prof. Alfredo Brillembourg, Prof. Hubert Klumpner, Clearhos Eduardo Papanicolaou
With	Eva Alvarez - Polytechnic University of Valencia

Observe, Record, Edit - Valencia

The Intersection of Research and Arts Practice Through Ethnography