Subject: ADFF:Chicago starts tomorrow!

January 28, 2025


ADFF is headed to Chicago this week for the last stop of our 2024/25 season! We'll be screening 10 Chicago premieres. Tomorrow's opening night screening of Schindler Space Architect is sold out, but you still have time to buy your tickets for some fantastic films throughout the week. Be inspired by the philosophies of urbanist and landscape architect Laurie Olin in Sitting Still and stick around after the screening for a Q&A with the film's director. Enjoy two films featuring LGBTQ architects/designers: E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea and Arthur Erickson: Beauty Between the Lines. The Erickson screening also includes a director Q&A. Other highlights include two films created by the adult children of legendary architects: Ada – My Mother the Architect and Stardust: The Story of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. We've got two excellent Italian films: Green Over Gray: Emilio Ambasz, who was considering the environmental impact of his buildings long before it was popular, and The Pavilion on the Water about Venetian master Carlo Scarpa.


Below are our Thursday and Friday screenings...

Thursday, January 30th

E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea

2024 / 90 min / Switzerland

Directors: Beatrice Minger, Christoph Schaub

7:00 PM


She built a house for herself. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a masterpiece. Irish designer Eileen Gray built a refuge on the Côte d‘Azur in 1929. Her first house is a discrete, avant-garde masterpiece. She named it E.1027, a cryptic marriage of her initials and those of Jean Badovici, with whom she built it. Le Corbusier, upon discovering the house, became intrigued and obsessed. He later covered the walls with murals and published photos of them. Gray described these paintings as vandalism and demanded restitution. He ignored her wishes and instead built his famous Cabanon directly behind E.1027, which dominates the narrative of the site to this day. This is a story about the power of one woman's expression and a man's desire to control it.


This program is co-presented by Molteni.

Friday, January 31st

Arthur Erickson: Beauty Between the Lines

2024 / 80 min / Canada

Directors: Ryan Mah, Danny Berish

6:30 PM

+ Q&A with the director


Beauty Between the Lines delves into the life and work of Arthur Erickson, a visionary architect first in Canada and ultimately throughout the world. With intimate interviews, unseen archival footage, and an exploration of his architectural masterpieces, the film weaves together the complexities of Erickson's personal and professional life. It reveals a man who transcended traditional boundaries, who fused art, culture, and nature and in the process, redefined modern architecture.

This program is co-presented by Nienkamper.

DEPOT – Reflecting Boijmans

2024 / 83 min / Netherlands 

Director: Sonia Herman Dolz

8:30 PM


DEPOT is a happy story of visionary minds. It's one of the world's most innovative museums, offering a playful storage depot that is completely open to the public. And so they commissioned a film about its making that would be just as innovative and playful.  The Depot is a shared dream of architect Winy Maas, a founding partner of MVRDV, and Sjarel Ex the Boijmans Museum executive director. This film tells the story of the creation of the world’s first museum depot, which was entirely open to visitors. Using a mixture of archival footage from Boijmans and the recent construction of Depot, director Sonia Herman Dolz draws apt parallels with the construction of the current museum building in the 1930s.

ADFF:Chicago is proudly supported by...

This year, ADFF and STIR launched an exciting new partnership with the goal of bringing ADFF programming to South Asia. We started with the first iteration of ADFF:Mumbai earlier this month and are already planning for 2026.


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