BFI Distribution has acquired Architecton (2024), the latest film by acclaimed director Victor Kossakovsky (Gunda, Aquarela), from German sales agent The Match Factory. The film is set for theatrical release across the UK and Ireland on 10 January 2025, with a digital release on BFI Player following on 25 March 2025.
Premiering at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, Architecton was nominated for both the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Documentary Award. Its UK premiere will take place at the 68th BFI London Film Festival on 19 October at BFI IMAX, the UK’s largest screen.
Architecton is a visually stunning, poetic exploration of architecture, featuring a landscape project by Italian architect Michele De Lucchi. The film captures the rise and fall of civilizations through breathtaking imagery, spanning from the ancient temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon to the destruction caused by the 2023 earthquake in Turkey.
The documentary highlights the connections between past and present through the use of stone and concrete, reflecting on humanity’s complex relationship with nature and posing the crucial question: How can we build better for the future?
Produced by Heino Deckert, with contributions from stonemasons and stone artists such as Mauro Mella, Davide Alioli, and Nick Steur, Architecton offers a profound meditation on architecture’s impact on civilization and survival.
Watch “Architecton” Press Conference Highlights Berlinale 2024
Julie Pearce, BFI Head of Distribution, said: “As we were sitting watching Architecton in Berlin, we were excited at how spectacular these incredible images would look and sound on our massive BFI IMAX screen on the South Bank, famed, of course, for its Brutalist architecture. After its LFF UK premiere at BFI IMAX, we’ll be programming further screenings there when it opens in January, combined with screenings at BFI Southbank and its release in cinemas around the UK and in Ireland – we hope on the biggest screens possible!”
BFI Distribution recently released feature film Starve Acre and will release the Cannes Grand Prix-winner, All We Imagine as Light on 29 November. It released the documentaries Scala!!! and Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer at the beginning of the year.
