SCREENING

ArtScience on Screen: Textures Of The City

In conjunction with the Singapore Pavilion at the 17 International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, and Archifest Singapore, ArtScience Museum is proud to present a curated programme of films as a love letter to cities – celebrating its urban spirit, textures, its people, and how we can all build a more inclusive world.

Featuring a total of 7 feature films and 3 short films ranging from film festival picks, cult-classics and verité-style documentaries, the films highlight inequality in cities, casting gazes into those who fall through the cracks in urban planning, such as immigrants, the elderly, and even whole low-income neighbourhoods. At the same time, the films also remind us of the beauty of human relationships and how they can be harnessed in urban design to shape a more inclusive society.

Exhibitors and collaborators from the Singapore Pavilion discuss how the films resonate with them personally and in their practices in post-screening dialogues (pre-recorded) and through a special edition of Screen Zine.

Screen Zine

Feature Films and Schedule

Moriyama-San (2017)
63 minutes | PG13 (Some Sexual References)
Dir. Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine
Japanese and English with English subtitles

Best Film – Lisbon Arquiteturas Film Festival 2018

*Southeast Asian Premiere*

Admission: Free

Showtimes
Mon – Fri: 11am & 3.30pm
Sat, Sun, PH: 11am except 6 - 7, 11 - 14, 16 Nov

One week in the extraordinary life on Mr. Moriyama – an elderly man living alone in an iconic house designed by Pritzker-winning Ryue Nishizawa, right in the heart of Tokyo.

An endearing snapshot of living simply and to the fullest in the anxious phase of aging, join Moriyama-san as he partakes in noise-music, acrobatic reading, silent films and other small pleasures in life – and witness how Japanese design can provide a template for meaningful living.
종착역 (Short Vacation) (2020)
79 minutes | PG
Dir. Seol Si-yeon, Bae Yeon-woo
Korean with English subtitles

Nominee - Crystal Bear, Berlin Film Festival 2021

*Southeast Asian Premiere*

Admission: S$5

Showtimes
3, 17, 31 Oct (Sun), 5pm
7 Nov (Sun), 2pm

A playful, coming-of-age tale where 4 teenage schoolgirls are tasked on a school photography project. Deciding on the topic of ‘the end of the world’, they set out to the last train stop in their city, imagining apocalyptic scenes of desolation – only to be disappointed that it’s just like any old boring station.

Undeterred, armed with old-fashioned disposable cameras, and inspired by the boundless freedom of the summer holidays, they continue their expedition on foot in exploring this quiet, rural part of the city - laughing in the rain, posing on deserted countryside paths, getting lost in conversations, actually getting lost, and discovering a whole separate universe, tied to their inextricable bond with each other.
Daguerréotypes (1976)
80 minutes | PG (Some Disturbing Scenes)
Dir. Agnès Varda
French with English subtitles

Palme D'honneur – Agnes Varda, Cannes Film Festival 2015

Admission: S$5

Showtimes
2, 16, 30 Oct (Sat), 2pm
6 Nov (Sat), 2pm

What makes a neighbourhood? Diving into the kampung spirit of Paris’s rue Daguerre, Agnès Varda trains her curious auteur eye around her own neighbourhood where she had lived and worked in since the 1950s.

Limited to within 90m of her own street (as far as a film cable can stretch) due to the recent birth of her infant son, Varda explores the street’s lifeblood: bakers, tailors, butchers, perfumers, hairdressers and others- who, between everyday rituals of their works, talk of their lives, relationships, hopes, dreams and fears.

Cleverly unveiling the inextricably link between self, space and people around us, Varda taps into her iconic lens of translating the mundane into poetic scenes of togetherness, transforming a humble street into a rich, kaleidoscopic world.

Image © Ciné-Tamaris
Taming The Garden (2021)
90 minutes | NC16 (Some Coarse Language)
Dir. Salomé Jashi
Georgian with English subtitles

Nominee - Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize 2021

*Southeast Asian Premiere*

Admission: S$5

Showtimes
9 & 23 Oct (Sat), 2pm
4 Nov (Deepavali) & 5 Nov (Fri), 2pm

A powerful man in Georgia has developed an exquisite hobby – collecting majestic, century-old exotic trees along the Georgian coastline.

In transporting these trees – some as tall as 15 storeys – electric cables have been shifted, other ‘lesser’ trees chopped off and new roads paved, greatly impacting the lives of the rural community – some even permanently.

Can one tree be worth more than that its forest? Can the whims of one overshadow the needs or many? Just how much power does it take for the rich to remake entire towns and cities in their own image?

With clear-eyed cinematrography that's equal parts mesmerising and haunting, accompanied by a contemplative, arms-length lens of moral ambiguity, Taming The Garden is a poignant lesson in equality through the lens of the wealthy, the poor and their relationship with nature.
About Endlessness (2019)
78 minutes | PG13 (Some Mature Content)
Dir. Roy Andersson
Swedish with English subtitles

Winner - Silver Lion for Best Director, Venice Film Festival 2019

Admission: S$5

Showtimes
10 & 24 Oct (Sun), 2pm
4 Nov (Deepavali) & 5 Nov (Fri), 11am

Combining the mesmerising urban loneliness of Edward Hopper paintings with the unapologetically absurdist humour of newspaper comic strips, Roy Andersson's final film of his magnificent career is a kaleidoscopic ode and lament to what it means to be human.

Featuring 33 loosely interlacing stories, Andersson takes viewers through an omnipresent journey to everywhere and nowhere, gentle cruising through tragicomic vignettes of alcoholic priests having crises of faiths, marital indiscretions in wet markets, ghosted dates in pallid diners, carefree youths in the rapturous dance of summer, and more.

Darkly funny yet mournful, crushingly helpless yet soaringly hopeful, ABOUT ENDLESSNESS taps into the spirits and histories of cities in observing the timelessness of human despair - but it is also a ceaseless, triumphant celebration of courage and the urbanity of existence.
What Do We See When We Look At The Sky (2021)
150 minutes | PG
Dir. Alexandre Koberidze
Georgian with English subtitles

Winner - FIPRESCI Prize, Berlin Film Festival 2021

Admission: S$5

Showtimes
4 Nov (Deepavali) – 7 Nov (Sun), 4.30pm

Like a Wes Anderson film written by Kafka, What Do We See When We Look At The Sky is a charming modern fairy tale set in the enchanting ancient city of Kutaisi, Georgia.

It's summertime - romance and World Cup fever are in the air. Outdoor cafes are busy prepping screens for the championships, dogs fight for the best viewing spots, but local footballer Giorgi and pharmacist Lisa lose each other before they even properly meet. The Evil Eye has cast a spell on them - and the unfortunate would-be lovebirds have both woken up in other stranger's bodies. Will they find each other and overcome the curse that separates them?

A love letter to one extraordinary summer town, to cinema, and to Lionel Messi, What Do We See When We Look At The Sky is playful, feel-good, and mesmerisingly riveting celebration of how cities magically 'engineer' chance encounters that can forever change your life.
Citizen Jane: Battle For The City (2016)
92 minutes | PG (Brief Nudity)
Dir. Matt Tyrnauer
English

Admission: S$5

Showtimes
10 & 24 Oct (Sun), 5pm
7 Nov (Sun), 11am

It's the 1950s. Modernism is on the rise. Uniformity. Simplicity. Capitalism. Urban planning mogul Robert Moses has a big plan - by the vast bureaucratic powers vested in him, lower Manhattan neighbourhoods will make way for superhighways, parks and stretches of housing towers. Break a few eggs to make an omelette.

Enter Jane Jacobs - spirited journalist, author, and feisty resident of the threatened Greenwich Village. “Protect the neighbourhoods" - was her rallying cry in the following battle for the very soul of New York City, a fight to save more than 2200 families, 300 retail stores and 480 other commercial establishments.

In a fiery deadlock lasting for years, featuring courtroom dramas, rapper-level petty beefs and civilised mudslinging, Citizen Jane is a thrilling contemplation of whether the future of cities should be decided by the streets or by suits - and an unforgettably inspiring story of how one woman single-handedly took down one of the biggest goliaths in the architecture world and inspired city planners all over the world.

Short Films Line-Up

Flags & Debris (2020)
13 minutes | PG
Dir. Doug Aitken

*Asian Premiere*

Admission: S$5 for admission to screening of all 3 short films

3, 17, 31 Oct (Sun), 2pm
6 Nov (Sat), 11am

Visionary artist Doug Aitken teams up with the Los Angeles Dance Project led by the award-winning Benjamin Millepied (Black Swan) in presenting a bewitching, site-specific contemporary dance work.

Inspired by Aitken’s latest solo exhibition of the same name, mysterious figures cloaked in Aitken’s textile artworks haunt the desolate, empty streetscapes in Los Angeles, pulsing and prowling to the spiritual rhythm of the city. Concrete, sky, gravel and bodies blend and bond across the screen like magical, urban tarot cards come to life, manifesting both the intoxicating allure of unbridled freedom and the gnawing grief of absence when cities lose their lifeblood – people.

Image © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich and Regen Projects.
Architectural Desires (2016)
8 minutes | G
Dir. Debbie Ding

Admission: S$5 for admission to screening of all 3 short films

3, 17, 31 Oct (Sun), 2pm
6 Nov (Sat), 11am

The time is neither future nor past. The place is neither East nor West. The design of our built environments begin with ideas, and these ideas are articulated in ways which may be conceptual, fuzzy, or imprecise.

In a playful investigation in tracing these ideas, artist Debbie Ding takes us on a whimsical journey across patterns, textures, colours and shapes in contemplation of how attachments or bonds are formed between beings and spaces.
Membrane (2020)
37 minutes | PG
Dir. Jacob Kirkegaard

*Asian Premiere*

Admission: S$5 for admission to screening of all 3 short films

3, 17, 31 Oct (Sun), 2pm
6 Nov (Sat), 11am

If walls could speak, what stories would they tell? With projects that have taken him from the West Bank to Chernobyl in listening to the souls of spaces, sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard sets his sights on the US-Mexico border wall - a long metal barrier separating two nations.

Embedding microphones in its steel structure, Kirkegaard discovers that the wall has a voice – in fact, it sings. Its endless snaking body, cutting through mountains, deserts, Native American land, national parks and even whole cities, picks up sonic energies from its surroundings, vibrating its core - radiating harmonic overtones similar to a harp, producing a eerie soundtrack to ruthless divide and power balances in spaces.

Image: Jacob Kirkegaard ©️ 2020