Image de Ville 2018 – Film Festival on Architecture and Urban Space

Deeply anchored in its own urban and metropolitan territory, the Aix-en-Provence film festival Image de ville opens a cultural dialogue between the worlds of cinema, architecture and urban development, gathering filmmakers and producers, architects and urbanists, historians and artists. A diverse selection of films, from fiction to documentaries and movies-in-the-making, is presented in a ciné-concert style with conferences and roundtables with filmmakers and other guests.

This year, the festival’s 16th edition proposes a (re)discovery of Alger and an immersion in Chinese cities. Festival goers will be able to explore contemporary architecture and urban territories and get a better understanding of ecological collapses and urban renewal.

The festival will host the film premiere of the movie An Elephant Sitting Still by Hu Bo, which explores four destinies in a post-industrial, deserted city in Northern China. The screening will be preceded by a masterclass given by sinologist and film historian Luisa Prudentino, where she will analyze the aesthetics of the city as the starting point of Chinese filmmakers’ questionings on the contemporary world and their futures. The movie Derniers jours à Shibati will also be presented to the public, followed by a discussion with its filmmaker, Hendrick Dusollier. The movie recounts the last days of an old neighborhood in the city of Chongqing and the memories of its inhabitants, before their relocation and the destruction of the area. This selection of movies highlights the role that cities play in modern Chinese life, cities at the heart of physical and social mutations.

Author: Gwenaëlle Brandelet, edited by: Jérémie Descamps