News

Germany-based New Docs has acquired world sales rights to Tracing Light, which has its world premiere as the opening title of Dok Leipzig film festival this evening.

The film explores the subject of light from the perspective of artists and scientists, including contributors from Scotland’s Outer Hebrides and the Max Planck Institute in Erlangen, Germany.

It is directed by German filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer, and produced by Scottish-German filmmaker Sonja Henrici, and Riedelsheimer’s Filmpunkt GmbH. The film is backed by Screen Scotland, and Germany’s FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, the Federal Commissioner for Arts and Media, the Federal Film Board and 3Sat.

World premieres of US filmmaker Chris Gude’s Morichales, about gold mining in Venezuela, Italian director Maria Mauti’s Miralles dedicated to the legacy of a Catalan architect, and La Jetée, The Fifth Shot by renowned French director Dominique Cabrera, are among the films selected for the international competition at this year’s Dok Leipzig festival.

It is taking place from October 28 to November 3 in Germany.

The international competition titles also include Ukrainian director Adelina Borets’s Flowers Of Ukraine, about a woman cultivating a small plot of land in Kyiv amid war. The project was presented at last year...

Three German regional film funds - Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, Fff Bayern and Hessen Film & Medien - have allocated more than €12m to new film and TV series projects in their latest funding sessions.

The fifth and final season of Babylon Berlin, scheduled to start production this autumn, received the largest sum of €2m from the funding committee of Düsseldorf-based Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw.

In total, the fund distributed €5.3m to 12 projects including Coin Film’s production of writer-director Jutta Brückner’s drama The Assistant, starring Corinna Harfouch and Sandra Hüller; Heimatfilm and Amour Fou’s co-production of Ulrike Ottinger...

This meditative documentary gets to grips with British sculptor and nature artist, whose work is about the ephemeral and enduring

A companion piece to River and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time, a 2001 documentary about the remarkable British artist, this elegant sequel reteams Goldsworthy, cinematographer-director-editor Thomas Riedelsheimer and composer Fred Frith to create another mesmerising cinematic experience observing the artist at work, shaping and interacting with nature around the world.

A friend who watched this with me said that it’s the kind of film she’d like to see again when she’s dying. That pretty much nails its meditative, melancholy tone and suits the kind of work Goldsworthy does, which is all about the ephemeral and the enduring; time and the tactile qualities of the instant. At an intriguingly eclectic range of sites including San Francisco, Brazil, Gabon, central Edinburgh and rural corners of France and England, Goldsworthy...

Award-winning documentary filmmakers take part in pan-European TV project.

Forty-five European documentary directors are taking part in the marathon TV project 24h Europe – We Are The Future (working title) that wraps today (Monday June 18) after a four-day shoot across the continent.

The directors include Germany’s Thomas Riedelsheimer, Serbia’s Mila Turajlic and Romania’s Alexandru Solomon.

It follows 60 protagonists in 25 European countries from Bulgaria to Iceland and focusing on the hopes, fears and desires of young people between the ages of 15 and 30.

The project is a co-production between Berlin-based zero one 24 and France’s Idéale Audience, and is backed by Arte,...

Chicago – The British artist Andy Goldsworthy is a true “outsider” artist, because many of his works are rooted in the grown-and-death cycles of the great outdoors. He is described as a sculptor, photographer and environmentalist, but many of his art creations use materials available in any wooded area, based on a connection to nature combined with a creative soul. This is profiled in the second film about him from the same director, “Leaning Into the Wind - Andy Goldsworthy.”

Rating: 4.0/5.0

This is a followup documentary film to “Rivers and Tides - Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time” (2001) by director Thomas Riedelsheimer, who also directs “Leaning Into the Wind.” The director obviously loves his subject, as the film is a valentine to Goldworthy’s methods and completed works. This functions as a study of both how perhaps ancient civilizations invented art, and the collaboration that the artist has using the natural environment as his media.

By Glenn Dunks

As a medium, film is a record forever. An actor can give a stunning performance on a stage, but without a camera to capture it, it remains somewhat in the ether – a happening, an instance, a moment in time that can only truly live on in the mind of those who witnessed it. Of course, that doesn’t make it any less valid or worthy, but it’s something worth considering as we watch movies that they, even fictional ones, are ultimately a document of the emotions and the energy and the craft that was put into it, captured forever for anybody to experience.

I thought of this as I watched Thomas Riedelsheimer’s Leaning into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy because it is a film that will live on as the only document of some of Goldsworthy’s work. The artist is known predominantly for his works...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended VIEWINGWe're very much in love with Zama, Lucrecia Martel's long-anticipated return to filmmaking. The new trailer calls us back to our encounter of the film at Toronto last year and our conversation with the director.We all know that Rainer Werner Fassbinder made a lot—a whole lot—of films in his all too brief 15 years of activity, but it's truly remarkable how new (old) work of his keeps appearing. First there was the revelation of World on a Wire (1973) and now another made-for-tv epic has been restored and is being re-released, Eight Hours Are Not a Day (1972-1973). We wonder what other future delights and provocations Rwf has in store for us!Recommended READINGDoll & EmAt The Guardian, Lili Loofbourow takes a look at how stories about women are perceived and received differently than those about men.

New blood! “The Death of Stalin” came along just in time to replace the aging awards titles that dominated the specialized world since October. In its initial two-city platform, audiences embraced the unlikely comedy involving a group of famous Soviet figures who plan to kill the Communist despot. Maybe the Oscar hangover won’t be so bad this year.

Two other wider releases — “The Leisure Seeker” and “Thoroughbreds” — had larger grosses, but far lower per-theater averages. Neither suggest much traction.

Opening

The Death of Stalin (IFC) – Metacritic: 88; Festivals include: Toronto 2017, Sundance 2018

$181,308 in 4 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $45,307

Armando Iannucci’s early-1950s, Moscow-set comedy that surrounding plotting and maneuvers at the dictator’s demise is the first 2018 platform release to suggest crossover appeal. The $45,000 PTA in four New York/Los Angeles theaters is impressive; it’s just behind “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “While We’re Young,” both in...

In a radio interview a few years ago, the British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy talked about the feeling he gets when he’s in the middle of building something and suddenly it falls apart. “Failure is really, really important,” he said. “But failures have to hurt.” The point was that for Goldsworthy, who makes deliberately ephemeral things, building a stone wall knowing it’ll collapse is not at all the same as really hoping it doesn’t.Being radio, that interview had to do without an illustration, but helpfully the German filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer has been making occasional documentary profiles of Goldsworthy in which such moments occur on camera, with the sneak-up force of real epiphanies. In 2001’s Rivers and Tides, it was an orb of stones crumpling into a sodden foundation of beach sand. In Riedelsheimer’s new film, Leaning Into the Wind, it’s an arrangement of yellow elm leaves,...

Earlier today the folks at the Northwest Film Center announced the full line-up for this year’s Portland International Film Festival, and have published a Pdf for all to read online. The printed copies will be making their way around town this week.

The Northwest Film Center is proud to reveal the 41st Portland International Film Festival (Piff 41) lineup. This year’s Festival begins on Thursday, February 15th and runs through Thursday, March 1st. Our Opening Night selection is the new comedy The Death of Stalin from writer/director Armando Iannucci (Veep, In the Loop). The film, adapted from the graphic novel by Fabien Nury, stars Steve Buscemi, Olga Kurylenko, Jason Isaacs, and Michael Palin. The Death of Stalin will screen simultaneously on Opening Night at the Whitsell Auditorium, located in the Portland Art Museum (1219 Sw Park Ave) and on two screens at Regal Fox Tower 10 (846 Sw Park Ave).

Check...

Daphne, Glory also scoop prizes.

Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country has won the top prize at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The well-received drama, which premiered in Sundance and had its UK premiere in Edinburgh, took the Michael Powell Award for best British feature film.

The prize was awarded by a jury consisting of composer David Arnold, International Film Festival Rotterdam artistic director Bero Beyer, and Bafta-nominated film and television writer Andrea Gibb.

The jury commented: “We present the Michael Powell Award to God’s Own Country, directed by Francis Lee, a film with a singularity of storytelling and consistency of vision. Assured direction with raw and endearing performances result in a film that has an authenticity that is both tender and brutal, a juxtaposition of landscape and emotion, which explores the question of what it means to be a man.”

On hearing the news, director Francis Lee said: “I am thrilled with this...

Exclusive: Distributor to time release alongside Us launch through Magnolia.

Films We Like has snapped up Canadian rights in a deal with Mongrel International.

Thomas Riedelsheimer’s second film about the life and work of British artist Andy Goldsworthy follows his acclaimed 2001 film Rivers And Tides.

Leaning Into The Wind premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival and explores the outdoor spaces that have inspired Goldsworthy, spanning Scotland, France and New England.

Films We Like plans a Canadian theatrical release later this year alongside the Us launch through Magnolia Pictures.

The companies are following a similar pattern this autumn on Lucky, John Carroll Lynch’s feature directorial starring Harry Dean Stanton as a 90-year-old atheist on a spiritual quest.

Films We Like president Ron Mann brokered the Leaning Into The Wind deal with Mongrel International president Charlotte Mickie.

Magnolia Pictures acquired U.S. distribution rights to director Thomas Riedelsheimer's documentary Leaning Into the Wind and is planning a theatrical rollout later this year. It’s Riedelsheimer’s sophomore docu on renowned British artist Andy Goldsworthy, following their 2001 collaboration Rivers and Tides. The film, which world premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival, centers on the vibrant journey through the diverse layers of Goldsworthy’s world…...

Separately, Films We Like acquires Lucky, plans simultaneous release in Canada with Us distributor Magnolia.

Magnolia Pictures has picked up Us rights from Mongrel International to Thomas Riedelsheimer’s Leaning Into The Wind.

Riedelsheimer’s second documentary about British artist Andy Goldsworthy following Rivers And Tides recently received its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Leaning Into The Wind journeys into the hillsides, terrains, and other outdoor spaces where Goldsworthy feels most at home, from urban Edinburgh and Glasgow to the south of France and New England.

Magnolia plans a theatrical release later this year.

“Thomas has crafted another extraordinary film in Leaning Into The Wind,” Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles said. “Not only is it a visual masterpiece, it’s also one of the most fascinating character studies I’ve seen in years.”

“Fifteen years after Rivers And Tides, San Francisco again provided such a warm and enthusiastic welcome,” Riedelsheimer said. “I...

Either an artistic environmentalist or an environmental artist, Cheshire native Andy Goldsworthy has spent the better part of his life using natural resources (and almost nothing else) to create site-specific works that are built to fall apart. He wraps icicles around shrubs like ribbons, and leaves before they melt. He lies on the ground at the first hint of rain in order to leave a dry silhouette amidst the drops. Some of his projects disappear in seconds — he’s known to wrap flower petals around his hands so tight that they look like engorged flesh, and then dip his hands into a stream to watch the petals shed off and float away. Others will surely outlive him — he’s fascinated by rock walls, and will carve trenches between them in order to foster the sensation of being inside the earth — but on a long enough timeline, even those more enduring...

Nothing short of extraordinary, Thomas Riedelsheimer’s “Leaning into the Wind – Andy Goldsworthy” rekindles the captivating observation of English artist Andy Goldsworthy at this year’s San Fransisco International Film Festival. Reidelsheimer premiered one of his first English-language documentaries in 2002 at Sfiff, with his first documentary focused on artist Andy Goldsworthy’s work, “River and Tides – Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time.”

Read More: San Francisco’s Master Plan to Keep Film Relevant In the 21st Century — Sf International Film Festival

Receiving unexpected acclaim, “Rivers and Tides” got picked up for distribution, eventually making its way to Roger Ebert, where he gave the film four stars. Reidelsheimer returns to the fest this year with the second installment of Andy Goldsworthy’s work, “Leaning into the Wind – Andy Goldsworthy.”

This year, Sfiff has programmed a new, highly selective, section of the festival titled Launch. Only five films live within the Launch section...

In 2002, director Thomas Riedelsheimer premiered his documentary “River and Tides – Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time” at the San Francisco International Film Festival. At the time, its future was uncertain: Unlike Sundance, San Francisco wasn’t an active marketplace for movies in search of U.S. distribution. Nevertheless, the movie won a top prize at the festival and began its theatrical life at the Roxie that year before gradually finding an audience nationwide. When it opened in Chicago in early 2003, Roger Ebert gave it four stars, noting its Bay Area origin story and a history of “finding its audience not so much through word of mouth as through hand on elbow, as friends steered friends into the theater.”

Now, Riedelsheimer is returning to San Francisco with a sequel to “Rivers and Tides” called “Leaning Into the Wind,” which updates viewers on the progress of British artist Goldsworthy, and the movie has...

Exclusive: Documentary sees director Riedelsheimer revisiting artist Andy Goldsworthy.

Mongrel International has acquired international sales on Leaning Into The Wind, Thomas Riedelsheimer’s follow-up to his acclaimed documentary Rivers And Tides.

Sixteen years after Riedelsheimer profiled the work of land artist Andy Goldsworthy he revisits the artist.

Leaning Into The Wind will get its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April alongside an anniversary screening of Rivers And Tides.

The new film shot from 2013-16 is described as a more personal investigation into Goldsworthy’s work as he incorporates his own body into his work and collaborates with crews on massive machinery.

Leaning Into The Wind is a Scottish-German co-production produced by Leslie Hills and Stefan Tolz with support from The National Lottery through Creative Scotland, Robert Hiscox, Roger Evans and Aey Phanachet, Sakurako and William Fisher, Miel de Botton, John Caulkins and Leslie Hills.

Piffl will distribute in Germany and Eurozoom in France...

Let us play the “Name Game”, shall we? Since we all are part of the experience here at the entertainment website known as Sound on Sight maybe we should pay homage to our online destination by celebrating it in an unconventional manner? Specifically, we can recognize Sound on Sight by acknowledging movie names that contain the words “sound” and “sight” in their titles.

However you may perceive this experimentation as being rather gimmicky and silly please realize that this movie column is also a means to recognize a few movie titles that are unfamiliar or perhaps a first-time discovery to some of you out there that never heard some of these cinematic selections. There may be a couple of well-known films in the bunch but collectively the features being mentioned in Sound on Sight: Top 10 Random “Sound” and “Sight” Movie Titles are aptly presented based on the theme at hand.

Hubert Sauper's Darwin's Nightmare Head-on, Javier Bardem, Imelda Staunton: European Film Awards 2004 European Film Academy Documentary – Prix Arte Aileen: Life And Death Of A Serial Killer by Nick Broomfield & Joan Churchill / UK * Darwin's Nightmare by Hubert Sauper / Austria / France / Belgium Die SPIELWÜTIGEN (Addicted to Acting) by Andres Veiel / Germany La Pelota Vasca, La Piel Contra La Piedra (Basque Ball, Skin Against Stone) by Julio Medem / Spain Le Monde Selon Bush (The World According to Bush) by William Karel / France Mahssomim (Checkpoint) by Yoav Shamir / Israel The Last Victory by John Appel / The Netherlands Touch The Sound by Thomas Riedelsheimer / Germany / UK / Finland European Film Academy Short Film – Prix Uip * Prix Uip Ghent: J'attendrai le suivant… by Philippe Orreindy / France Prix Uip Valladolid: Les Baisers des Autres by Carine Tardieu / France Prix Uip Angers: Poveste La Scara "C" by Cristian Nemescu / Romania Prix Uip Berlin: Un Cartus De Kent Si Un Pachet De Cafea...

Cologne, Germany -- Monika Willi, the editor of Michael Haneke's Oscar-nominated "The White Ribbon," Stefan Essl, editor of action comedy "Jerry Cotton;" and Hansjorg Weissbrich, who cut Hans-Christian Schmid's war-crimes drama "Storm" are among the nominees for this year's Schnitt Prize, Germany's premiere film editing award.

Also nominated in the feature film category are Mona Brauer and Heike Gnida for their work on Matthias Glasner's disturbing pedophilia drama "This is Love" and Wolfgang Weigl, nominated for "The Two Lives of Daniel Shore," the feature debut of director Michael Dreher.

In the documentary category, nominated editors include Thomas Riedelsheimer, who directed and cut his latest, "Soul Birds;" Gisela Castronari-Jaensch and Vadim Jendreyko for "The Woman with the 5 Elephants;" Marc Haenecke for "Jagdzeit;" Thomas Grube and Barbara Toennieshen for "To Fight For" and Stephan Krumbiegel for "Wiegenlieder."

The 12th Schnitt Film Prize will be awarded Nov. 29 in Cologne.

"A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it." -Andy Goldsworthy Thomas Riedelsheimer's criminally unheard of documentary on British artist Andy Goldsworthy could be, for most people, just as much a test in patience as the process of making the works of art is for the artist. The pace of any film is dictated by character and if your only character is a methodical, patient and philosophical man who has taken, in essence, the simple act of making art in, and with, nature to a profound and inspiring level you can imagine the above quote being more than accurate. If you can get into the rhythm (more of an ebb and flow really) of Rivers and Tides you will however, find a simple and touching portrait of an artist and, along with Lars Von Trier's The Five Obstructions,...

The 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival (Viff) will be held October 1-16, 2009. Founded in 1982, Viff's mandate is "...to encourage the understanding of other nations through the art of cinema, to foster the art of cinema, to facilitate the meeting in British Columbia of cinema professionals from around the world and to stimulate the motion picture industry in British Columbia and Canada..." Over 150,000 people are expected to attend 640 screenings of 360 films from 80 countries. Here is an up-to-date list of directors, confirmed to attend Viff 2009, along with their films : "1428" Du Haibin "1999" Lenin Sivam "65_RedRoses" Philip Lyall & Nimisha Mukerji "Adelaide" Liliana Greenfield-Sanders "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector" Vikram Jayanti "Ana & Arthur" Larry Young "The Anchorage" Anders Edström & Curtis Winter "Antoine" Laura Bari "Argippo Resurrected" Dan Krames "The Art of Drowning" Diego Maclean "At Home By Myself... With You" Kris Booth "At The Edge Of The World" Dan Stone...

Cologne, Germany -- A not-so-happy holiday is the focus in the new project, "Home For Christmas" by award-winning Norwegian director Bent Hamer ("O'Horten").

Hamer has co-written the script, set in a tiny Norwegian town on Christmas Eve, with writer Levi Henriksen. Cologne-based Pandora Film, who produced "O'Horten," is on board, together with German European public broadcasters Zdf and Arte. The Nrw Film Board is backing the project with €400,000 ($560,000) in production subsidies. Hamer plans to shoot portions of the film in the Nrw region.

Also benefiting from Nrw's largesse is "Generation X" author Douglas Coupland, who has received backing to adapt his own novel "Eleanor Rigby" for the screen. The book tells the story of a lonely woman whose life is changed by an unexpected meeting with the son she gave up for adoption. Coupland is adapting his book for Cologne-based production house Tatfilm ("The Last King of Scotland").

Director Thomas Riedelsheimer,...

Screened

Mill Valley Film Festival

MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- Nathaniel Kahn, illegitimate son of the architect Louis I. Kahn, has created a beautiful, moving documentary about his father that should attract the same fervid audiences as Thomas Riedelsheimer's film on artist Andy Goldsworthy, "Rivers and Tides".

Like "Rivers and Tides" (or Agnes Varda's "The Gleaners and I"), "My Architect" examines an artist's aesthetic, but Nathaniel Kahn also is searching for the artist himself and trying to define a relationship with a father he little knew. Louis Kahn died ignobly in 1974 of a heart attack in a Penn Station bathroom, deep in debt. He left behind a wife and a daughter, a mistress and another daughter and a second mistress and a son, Nathaniel.

Louis Kahn was trained in the Beaux-Arts style at Yale, but it was ancient architecture that inspired his own vision. Kahn felt that architecture should be monumental, ceremonial, even holy. His Salk Institute for Biological Sciences overlooks the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, Calif., like some ancient maritime temple. The arched corridors of the Kimbell Art Center in Fort Worth, Texas, unfold behind a tranquil reflecting pool like mystical berms.

His difficult personality and work style may have severely limited the number of commissions Kahn received. "Artists don't get jobs", the architect Philip Johnson explains to Nathaniel. Frank Gehry proclaims that Lou was "a mystic who couldn't speak the language of business." The genial I.M. Pei reassures Nathaniel that "three or four masterpieces are better than 50 or 60 buildings." The filmmaker later shows a gorgeous stop-motion sunset over the Salk Institute that reiterates these artists' praise.

To paraphrase what Pauline Kael wrote of the young Nicolas Cage, Louis Kahn was an architect before he was a human being. His son suffered for this, yet Nathaniel's picture isn't about anger. "My Architect" is tinged with sorrow, compassion, forgiveness and, ultimately, love. More than 25 years after his father's death, Nathaniel visits his father's architectural works and speaks to the people who knew him: cabbies, colleagues, lovers and relatives. Kahn possesses a gentle but firm interviewing style and a generosity with his subjects that lets them open up.

Nathaniel continually attempts to define family, meeting with his two half sisters and asking if they are a family. "Yes", they answer, "if we choose to care about each other, then we're a family." And when he interviews his own mother, Harriet Pattison, he learns something essential about love and the mysterious forms it takes.

The movie is a tad long at 116 minutes, and there are one or two questionable music choices (Beethoven's Ninth, playing over images of the Kimbell museum, is too bombastic for the tone of the film), but the film captures the immense importance of architecture to the people it serves. The Bangladeshi architect Shamsul Wares, who worked with Kahn on the phenomenal National Assembly Hall in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a serene and mighty citadel, proclaims that Louis "gave us democracy." Louis, Wares explains, "loved everybody, but to love everybody, sometimes you don't see the closest ones." Nathaniel Kahn tries his best to love one who should have been closer, and ends up loving everybody right along with his father.

MY ARCHITECT

New Yorker Films

Louis Kahn Project

Credits:

Director-writer: Nathaniel Kahn

Producers: Nathaniel Kahn, Susan Rose Behr, Yael Melamede, John Hochroth, Judy Moon, Phyllis Kaufman

Executive producers: Susan Rose Behr, Andrew Clayman, Darrell Friedman

Director of photography: Bob Richman

Music: Joseph Vitarelli: Editor: Sabine Krayenbuhl

Narrator: Nathaniel Kahn

Running time -- 116 minutes

No MPAA rating...

Screened

Mill Valley Film Festival

MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- Nathaniel Kahn, illegitimate son of the architect Louis I. Kahn, has created a beautiful, moving documentary about his father that should attract the same fervid audiences as Thomas Riedelsheimer's film on artist Andy Goldsworthy, "Rivers and Tides".

Like "Rivers and Tides" (or Agnes Varda's "The Gleaners and I"), "My Architect" examines an artist's aesthetic, but Nathaniel Kahn also is searching for the artist himself and trying to define a relationship with a father he little knew. Louis Kahn died ignobly in 1974 of a heart attack in a Penn Station bathroom, deep in debt. He left behind a wife and a daughter, a mistress and another daughter and a second mistress and a son, Nathaniel.

Louis Kahn was trained in the Beaux-Arts style at Yale, but it was ancient architecture that inspired his own vision. Kahn felt that architecture should be monumental, ceremonial, even holy. His Salk Institute for Biological Sciences overlooks the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, Calif., like some ancient maritime temple. The arched corridors of the Kimbell Art Center in Fort Worth, Texas, unfold behind a tranquil reflecting pool like mystical berms.

His difficult personality and work style may have severely limited the number of commissions Kahn received. "Artists don't get jobs", the architect Philip Johnson explains to Nathaniel. Frank Gehry proclaims that Lou was "a mystic who couldn't speak the language of business." The genial I.M. Pei reassures Nathaniel that "three or four masterpieces are better than 50 or 60 buildings." The filmmaker later shows a gorgeous stop-motion sunset over the Salk Institute that reiterates these artists' praise.

To paraphrase what Pauline Kael wrote of the young Nicolas Cage, Louis Kahn was an architect before he was a human being. His son suffered for this, yet Nathaniel's picture isn't about anger. "My Architect" is tinged with sorrow, compassion, forgiveness and, ultimately, love. More than 25 years after his father's death, Nathaniel visits his father's architectural works and speaks to the people who knew him: cabbies, colleagues, lovers and relatives. Kahn possesses a gentle but firm interviewing style and a generosity with his subjects that lets them open up.

Nathaniel continually attempts to define family, meeting with his two half sisters and asking if they are a family. "Yes", they answer, "if we choose to care about each other, then we're a family." And when he interviews his own mother, Harriet Pattison, he learns something essential about love and the mysterious forms it takes.

The movie is a tad long at 116 minutes, and there are one or two questionable music choices (Beethoven's Ninth, playing over images of the Kimbell museum, is too bombastic for the tone of the film), but the film captures the immense importance of architecture to the people it serves. The Bangladeshi architect Shamsul Wares, who worked with Kahn on the phenomenal National Assembly Hall in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a serene and mighty citadel, proclaims that Louis "gave us democracy." Louis, Wares explains, "loved everybody, but to love everybody, sometimes you don't see the closest ones." Nathaniel Kahn tries his best to love one who should have been closer, and ends up loving everybody right along with his father.

MY ARCHITECT

New Yorker Films

Louis Kahn Project

Credits:

Director-writer: Nathaniel Kahn

Producers: Nathaniel Kahn, Susan Rose Behr, Yael Melamede, John Hochroth, Judy Moon, Phyllis Kaufman

Executive producers: Susan Rose Behr, Andrew Clayman, Darrell Friedman

Director of photography: Bob Richman

Music: Joseph Vitarelli: Editor: Sabine Krayenbuhl

Narrator: Nathaniel Kahn

Running time -- 116 minutes

No MPAA rating...