Homo Urbanus

AA Cinema Screening, Wednesday 16 October 

The AA Cinema will be hosting film screenings chosen each week by different AA Tutors. This week’s film, Homo Urbanus (2018), Directed & Hosted by Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine, (Diploma 16 Unit Masters). 

Synopsis: Walking in unknown cities to collect impressions, to catch a vibration, to gather situations and things seen at the angle of a street, on a crossroad, from the top of a building. Depicting a city in its present, in the simplicity of its daily life. Listening to its rumble, the sound of its depths. Slipping into its rhythm. To be on the lookout, in a continuous wonder towards the imagination and creativity men have managed to develop to find a way to live together. Asking ourselves what makes a city, trying to understand its silent rules, its habits, its imperfections, its difficulties, and its unique way to answer the endless question: Where do we go? This project tries to collect a few elements of answer. These visual notes, made on the fly, look at the urban inhabitant within his group and in his deep solitude, redrawing the outline of each city following a sentimental geography.

This work is a long-term research project developed until now in 7 different cities over the world: Seoul, Bogota, Naples, SaintPetersburg, Rabat, Kyoto and Tokyo. Born as an artistic commission for the Agora Biennale in Bordeaux around the theme of the moving landscapes, these videos plunge into cities in a spontaneous and subjective approach with very modest means in order to translate in the closest possible way the feel of their constant moving nature: their human landscape. Presented in a comparative dynamic through the lens of a selection of themes and issues linked with the street daily life, the videos enable us to perceive each of these different urban contexts as an experimental, local and unique laboratory answering the same global challenge of how can we live all together.

The AA Cinema is located in the Research Collections Room (basement, No. 32 Bedford Square) and is open for bookings by AA staff and students. A programme of screenings for AA members is held termly - see the What’s On listings and a Film Club for students also operates, showing films on a weekly basis. AA students and staff also have access to a library of 1,782 feature films and documentaries.

All film loans, viewings and screenings for students are held as part of an educational programme.

This screening is for AA Students and Staff only and is for the purpose of instruction, criticism and review.