Based on their experiences living and working amongst Soviet-era concrete, panel-block apartments, the filmmaker, together with five visual artists, examine past and present attitudes towards their former homes. Combining touching, personal stories with experimental research on the history of twentieth-century art and architecture, the film creates both a compelling narrative, and a contemporary aesthetic of panel-block mass housing using original watercolors, put into motion using digital animation and stop-motion techniques. As global and personal histories interweave, the film explores notions of moral and political responsibility as evinced in physical space. Empathy for Concrete Things thus considers how modern architecture has become the site of both utopian fantasies, and major calamities that shaped the history of the twentieth century. As former post-socialist countries have been thrust, or hang on the edge of new humanitarian and political crises, the film expresses its own rallying cry against destruction, all from the vantage point of concrete, panel-block apartments.
Motion Graphics and Animation: Florian Grolig / Visual Effects: Artem Funk / Sound Mix & Design: Gregory Gan, Stefan Metz, Florian Dupuy, Robin Hartkopf / Soundtrack: Birgitt Röttger-Rössler.
Forum screening, participation on invitation.
