Architecton

Architecton is a 2024 documentary film written and directed by Viktor Kossakovsky. It is an extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone.

The international co-production between Germany, France and United States, was selected in the Competition at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Bear and had first screening on 19 February 2024 at Berlinale Palast. The film was also nominated for the Berlinale Documentary Film Award.

Content
Victor Kossakovsky presents an epic, intimate and poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction – and offer hope for survival and a way forward.

Kossakovsky reflects on the rise and fall of civilizations while focusing on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, using imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to AD 60, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023.

Production
Architecton, the twelfth feature film by Viktor Kossakovsky was filmed in a schedule of 60 days. It is produced by the German company Ma.ja.de. with the French Point du Jour International and Les films du Balibari in collaboration with A24 and Hailstone Films. ZDF and Arte co-produced the film.

Release
Architecton had its world premiere on 19 February 2024, as part of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, in Competition.

The Cologne-based sales agent The Match Factory has international sales rights to the film before its Berlinale world premiere.

The film will have its first screening at CPH:DOX on 18 March 2024 in Artists & Auteurs section.

The film will also be screened at the 48th Hong Kong International Film Festival on 3 April 2024 in Firebird Awards Documentary competition.

It was screened at Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International, Frankfurt on 19 April 2024.

Reception
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes website, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10.

Jordan Mintzer reviewing the film for The Hollywood Reporter dubbed it as "Solid as a rock," and opined, "The director’s latest work, Architecton, is more about death than life, capturing the natural and manmade structures formed out of the planet’s bedrock and manipulated over time, destroyed quickly or gradually and then built anew." Mintzer praised the drone photography writing, "If there were ever an Oscar handed out for drone photography, Architecton would win it hands down this year." Giving positive review Mintzer concluded, "At a time when most documentaries, especially those made for streaming services, consist of little to no visual invention, the director has invented and finessed a cinematic language that says more about the world we live in than all the talking heads in all the Netflix docs combined."

Guy Lodge writing in Variety gave positive review and said, "There is no escaping our own mastery, our own determination of what is beautiful and useful, a man-made work that is very much both of those things, Architecton frustratedly awaits a new world order, or at least a new blueprint."

Lee Marshall wrote in ScreenDaily while reviewing the film at Berlinale, "Even before the opening credits have finished rolling, Architecton impresses."

Nicholas Bell in Ion Cinema rated the film with three and half stars and said, "As we drift through the ruins of the past, a portrait emerges juxtaposing the inherent differences regarding the materials and designs of the present."

Reviewing in Polyester, Gregory Coutaut rated the film with 5/6 and wrote, "Architecton takes off from simple capture to give life to a fantastic universe, close to post-apocalyptic science fiction."

Damon Wise for Deadline began his review by quoting Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli, "There is something new within the sun today, or rather ancient," and felt, "This fascinating, engrossing film interrogates the subtext of this seemingly paradoxical statement." He observed, "Such a concept isn’t all that new, but Kossakovsky’s fascinating, magnetic film essay does help us to reassess what we’ve lost over the centuries." Concluding Wise opined, "Architecton verbalizes something we are all thinking in the modern age of war and climate change:what will we leave behind, and what will it say about us to future generations?"

Accolades
The film was selected in Competition at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, thus it was nominated to compete for Golden Bear award.