Landing, Shirin Sabahi’s experimental short film, will show at the International Festival of Films on Art (Art FiFA) in Montreal on Tuesday.
A construction photographer with a taste for explosions and mythical creatures goes on a tour of his last assigned building. The building is nearly completed and he has decided to capture one iconic shot of it before leaving. He zigzags the building in lifts, escalators and across parking lots and unfinished floors. Experiencing the space by following his moving body, mostly from the perspective of his drone, the narrator (David Chipperfield) reads the thoughts of the photographer (Daekwang Lee) on the relationship between the built environment and its images, namely the entanglement of architecture and narrative cinema.
Landing (2018, 21 min) was commissioned by David Chipperfield Architects Berlin and is written and made based on conversations with twenty-six architects and engineers involved in the design of the Amorepacific headquarters in Seoul, where the film was shot. By involving the architects in imagining a film of their imagined building, Landing taps into the unconscious of the architecture studio as a collective body as well as a collection of individuals. It also reflects on architecture and film as both collaborative endeavours that are dependent on capital and have their limitations and inimitable qualities.
Screening: Tuesday 26 March, 17:30: Cinéma Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin, Salle 10
Image and text © Shirin Sabahi