Ben Building: Mussolini, Monuments and Modernism

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

April 2005 •German

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

Le Corbusier

July 1967 •French

Making a documentary on Le Corbusier is not easy, because he is undoubtedly the architect most familiar to the general public but also the most unknown. If most people know his great achievements, such as the Cité radieuse of Marseille, the pavilions of the Cité universitaire de Paris or the Tourettes convent, many are unaware of his works in Moscow, Rio de Janeiro or Chandigarh. Roy Oppenheim pays a vibrant tribute to Corbusier, dismissing the criticisms and darker facets of the character. It presents the career of this pioneering architect, as well as his thinking, the essential principle of which was aimed at the development of human beings and the balance of society. Light, space and greenery are integrated into his large futuristic cities, because according to him the eyes of the inhabitants should be drawn into the distance and not into their neighbor's bathroom.

In Between Mountains and Oceans

April 2014 •Japanese

Finding their place between the forest and the sea, the Japanese have always felt awe and gratitude toward Nature. Since ancient times, they have negotiated their own unique relationship with their natural surroundings. Acclaimed photographer Masa-aki Miyazawa discovered the essence of that ancient way of living in Ise Jingu, Japan’s holiest Shinto shrine. Inspired by the idea of sending a message to the future in the same way this ancient shrine keeps alive the traditions of the past, Miyazawa used an ultra-high resolution 4K camera to create a breathtaking visual journey linking the Ise forest with other forests throughout Japan.

Les dames du 9e

September 1998 •French

Ladies of good families and social standing come to have their afternoon tea with their daughters who will someday follow in the same tradition. A charming portrait of a time that is slowly disappearing.

The McIntyre Block

August 1977 •English

A turn of the 20th Century office block at Portage and Main. What was once Winnipeg's most prestigious commercial address has become a catch-all for the marginalized and history's leftovers. A snapshot of a fading era, now gone for good.

Amancio Williams

November 2013 •English

A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.

Quando i tedeschi non sapevano nuotare

November 2013 •Italian

Fascism in Colour

January 2006 •English

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

Electronic Poem

April 1958 •French

Poème Électronique is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The Philips corporation commissioned Le Corbusier to design the pavilion, which was intended as a showcase of their engineering progress. The pavilion was shaped like a stomach, with a narrow entrance and exit on either side of a large central space. As the audience entered and exited the pavilion, the electronic composition Concret PH by Iannis Xenakis (who also acted as Le Corbusier's architectural assistant for the pavilion's design) was heard. Poème électronique was synchronized to a film of black and white photographs selected by Le Corbusier which touched on vague themes of human existence.

A Night of Knowing Nothing

April 2022 •Bengali

L, a student in India witness to the government's violent response to university protests, writes letters to her estranged lover while he is away.

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

May 2021 •French

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

Soviet Bus Stops

May 2024 •English

“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.

Death Squadrons: The French School

September 2003 •French

After the Battle of Algiers, France and its army exported, as true experts, anti-subversive methods to Latin America and the United States in the 1960s. After more than a year of investigation in Argentina , in Chile, Brazil, the United States and France, the director collected, sometimes under the cover of a hidden camera, recorded conversations, the exclusive testimonies of the main protagonists. From General Aussaresses to former Minister of the Armed Forces Pierre Messmer, including General Reynaldo Bignone (head of the military junta in Argentina from 1982 to 1984), General Albano Harguindéguy, General Manuel Contreras, and Generals John Johns and Carl Bernard, this investigation gives us a hidden reality of the country of Human Rights.

The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright

January 1983 •English

Documentary on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture.

All Against All

November 2019 •Dutch

This richly illustrated historical documentary investigates the mechanism of nationalist feelings that radicalise. It shows how fascism was on the rise even a decade before the founding of the NSB, due to a number of anti-democratic initiatives led by a millionaire with a predilection for one-legged women, a market vendor, a cleric, and an artist. Historians, writers and collectors of fascist curios reveal how an initially marginal and fragmented movement grew into a radical populist party.

Empire City

July 1985 •English

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

Fascism Inc.

April 2014 •Greek

Unknown short stories from the past, the present and the future of fascism and its relation to the economic interests of each era. We will travel from Mussolini’s Italy to Greece under the Nazi occupation, the civil war and the dictatorship; and from Hitler’s Germany to the modern European and Greek fascism.

Dix Jours dans la guerre d'Espagne

February 2016 •French

Bauhaus 100

August 2019 •English

In 1919 an art school opened in Germany that would change the world forever. It was called the Bauhaus. A century later, its radical thinking still shapes our lives today. Bauhaus 100 is the story of Walter Gropius, architect and founder of the Bauhaus, and the teachers and students he gathered to form this influential school. Traumatised by his experiences during the Great War, and determined that technology should never again be used for destruction, Gropius decided to reinvent the way art and design were taught. At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines would come together to create the buildings of the future, and define a new way of living in the modern world.

Criminal Animals

January 1994 •English

In this filmic comment on Fascist ideology - which uses footage from the recently discovered archives of Luca Comerio - invisible hands push captive animals to fight among themselves.