How can cities and their architectures face climate emergencies in the face of exponential tragedy, beyond construction strategies and their technicalities?
Faced with such uncertainties, cinema—and culture in general—presents itself as a fundamental tool for denunciation, raising questions that challenge everyone. But not only that. Sequenced moving images are fertile ground for imagining other futures, reinventing social dynamics, broadening the debate on consumption, and truly agreeing on a balance between humans, built space, and the environment.
The challenges are stacked up.
This film screening, aligned with the curatorial thinking of the 14th BIAsp – Extremes: Architectures for a Hot World, seeks to critically provoke the public through a selection of feature and short films, both fictional and documentary, Brazilian and non-Brazilian, framing human rights, traditional knowledge, science and experimental constructions, extraction of natural resources, preservation and climate justice as central characters.
Rafael Blas – curator/programmer
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All screenings are free. Tickets can be picked up at the Cinemateca box office one hour before screenings.
Cinematheque: Largo Sen. Raul Cardoso, 207 – Vila Clementino, São Paulo – SP, 04021-070
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SESSION 6
THE INSTITUTE OF WEATHER MODIFICATION
Documentary, short film, 11 minutes
Year: 2022
Country: Austria, Latvia
Directed by: Helvijs Savickis and Julia Obleitne
Produced by: Helvijs Savickis and Julia Obleitne
Synopsis
Los Angeles' water system is among the largest and most controversial infrastructures in the world. Tracing its trajectory—from aqueducts and reservoirs to ultraviolet light treatment plants, hot springs, lakes, and cloud seeding stations—the film reveals the hidden geographies and infrastructures that sustain the city. By exploring climate change as part of this network, it reveals how human intervention in the climate is deeply intertwined with the control and survival of water in a desert metropolis.
THE FALL OF THE SKY
Documentary, feature film, 108 minutes
Year: 2024
Country: Brazil
Directed by: Eryk Rocha, Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha
Production: Aruac Films
Synopsis
Based on the powerful testimony of Yanomami shaman and leader Davi Kopenawa, the film "The Fall of the Sky" follows the important Reahu ritual, which mobilizes the Watorikɨ community in a collective effort to hold up the sky. The film offers a scathing shamanic critique of those Davi calls the "people of merchandise," as well as of illegal mining and the deadly mix of epidemics brought by outsiders that the Yanomami call "xawara" epidemics. It foregrounds the beauty of Yanomami cosmology, the xapiri spirits, and their geopolitical power that invites us to dream far.
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FULL PROGRAM
September 17 | Wednesday | 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Session 1 | Quebrante + Iracema: an Amazonian sex
September 21 | Sunday | 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Session 2 | Interior of the Earth + Top
September 24th | Wednesday | 5:30pm to 7:30pm
Session 3 | Colors Burn + Sky Falls
10/1 | Wednesday | 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Session 4 | Heyari + Fisherman's Street No. 6
02.10 | Thursday | 5:30pm to 7:30pm
Session 5 | Cold Recife + Fisherman's Street No. 6
08.10 | Wednesday | 5:30pm to 7:30pm
Session 6 | The Institute of Weather Modification + The fall of the sky
09.10 | Thursday | 5:30pm to 7:30pm
Session 7 | The Time It Takes + The Silence of the Oysters