Written and directed by Victor Kossakovsky (Gunda, Aquarela), Architecton has been acquired by BFI Distribution for theatrical release in the UK and Ireland. The film, which takes audiences on an extraordinary journey through the building materials concrete and stone, had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, where it was nominated for both the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Documentary Award. Its UK premiere is at the BFI London Film Festival (9 to 20 October) on Saturday 19 October at BFI IMAX, the UK’s biggest screen. The theatrical release date will be 10 January 2025, followed by release on BFI Player on 25 March.
Architecton is an epic, intimate and poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction – and offer hope for survival and a way forward. Centring on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, Kossakovsky uses the perfect circle of stones in De Lucchi’s garden to reflect on the rise and fall of civilisations, capturing breathtaking imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to AD 60, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023….