Moriyama-San a new film by Beka & Lemoine

Presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) as one of the “most exciting and critical design project of the year 2016”, the complete work of Bêka & Lemoine has been acquired in 2016 by the Museum of Modern Art in New-York (MoMA) for their permanent collection. Their films have been widely shown in some of the most prestigious international cultural institutions and events such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Barbican Centre (London), CCA (Montreal) and Fondazione Prada (Milan, Italy).

MORIYAMA-SAN, the first film about noise music, acrobatic reading, silent movies, fireworks and Japanese architecture.

Moriyama-San (63 min), is the new film proposed by the brilliant film-makers Bêka & Lemoine. Worldwide known for their first work, the famous Koolhaas Houselife documentary, now they show us a vision of one week in the extraordinary-ordinary life of Mr. Moriyama, a Japanese art, architecture and music enlightened amateur who lives in a contemporary Japanese architecture design, the Moriyama House, by Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA).

Introduced in the intimacy of this experimental microcosm which redefines completely the common sense of domestic life, Ila Bêka recounts in a very spontaneous and personal way the unique personality of the owner: a urban hermit living in a small archipelago of peace and contemplation in the heart of Tokyo. From noise music to experimental movies, the film let us enter into the ramification of the Mr. Moriyama's free spirit.

In 2016, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has acquired the entire work of Bêka & Lemoine for its permanent collection.

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Label

Credits

Text

France, 2017, HD, couleurs, 63'
Image.- Ila Bêka
Sound.- Ila Bêka
Editing.- Louise Lemoine & Ila Bêka
Production.- Bêka & Partners

Ila Bêka y Louise Lemoine Bêka and Lemoine

Ila Bêka y Louise Lemoine. Artists and filmmakers working at the crossroads of visual arts and non-fiction cinema. For the past twenty years, Bêka & Lemoine’s work has been exploring a critical perspective on architecture as a subtle instrument of social control. Through an observational and often humorous perspective, their cinematic approach foregrounds the frictions between design and daily life, revealing how people experience, adapt to, resist, or reinterpret architectural intentions. Their work emphasizes how architecture shapes not only movement and behaviour, but also emotions and social dynamics.

Together, Ila Bêka (Latisana, Italia, 1967) y Louise Lemoine (Burdeos, Francia, 1981) have made over forty films, among which are "Koolhaas HouseLife" (2008), ‘Barbicania’ (2014), ‘The Infinite Happiness’ (2015), ‘Moriyama San’ (2017), ‘Tokyo Ride’ (2020) and the city-matographic odyssey in 14 films ‘Homo Urbanus’ (2017-ongoing). In 2023, they published the book The Emotional Power of Space (B&P ed.)

Presented by The New-York Times as the “cult figures in the European architecture world”, Bêka & Lemoine’s work has been widely acclaimed as “a new form of criticism” (Mark), which “has deeply changed the way of looking at architecture” (Domus). Selected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (the Met) as one of the “Most exciting and critical design projects of the year 2016”, Bêka & Lemoine were elected “Game Changers 2015” by Metropolis Magazine, and selected as one of the “100 most talented personalities of 2017” by Icon Design.

Their films have been widely presented in both solo and collective exhibitions at leading art and architecture museums, including Fondation Beyeler (Basel), Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (Paris), Fondation Prada (Milan), MAXXI (Rome), La Biennale di Venezia (Venice), and the Barbican Art Gallery (London), among others.

In 2016, the MoMA - Museum of Modern Art in NY acquired Bêka & Lemoine’s entire body of work produced until that date for its permanent collection. Their films are also part of other public and private art collections, including MAXXI (Rome), CNAP Centre National des Arts Plastiques (Paris), Fondazione Prada (Milan), MAC/CCB Fundaçao Centro Cultural de Belém (Lisbon), among others.

Bêka & Lemoine are regularly invited to lecture in some leading universities: GSD / Harvard University (USA), GSAPP / Columbia University (New-York, USA), AAP / Cornell University (USA), Bartlett School of Architecture / UCL (London, UK). They have been invited as guest professors at GSAPP / Columbia University (New York) for the New York / Paris Program, at HEAD in Geneva (Switzerland), and from 2019 to 2021, they have been teaching the design Studio Diploma 16 (M.Arch.) at AA Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. They are currently teaching the course “Filming architecture” at Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland).

Their films are regularly shown in international film festivals, including CPH: DOX, Ji.hlava IDFF, Dok Leipzig, BAFICI, DocAviv, FIFA, Torino Film Festival, AFFR, among many others, where they have received many awards and distinctions.

In 2018, they have been laureate of Villa Kujoyama, a French residency program for artists in Japan, and Ila Bêka has been laureate Italian Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

Published on: May 11, 2017

Cite:

metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

"Moriyama-San a new film by Beka & Lemoine" METALOCUS. Accessed

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