AFFR Opening NightA Plan for ParadiseSold out

On Wednesday 4 October, the fifteenth edition of AFFR – the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam – opens with the world premiere of A Plan for Paradise by Finnish documentary filmmaker Kati Juurus. The screening will take in the main room of Theater Zuidplein in Rotterdam.

Build a city for 600,000 inhabitants in a valley outside Kathmandu. ‘We can do that,’ said the Finnish architecture firm Helin&Co. After winning the competition, the architects set to work. What follows is a culture clash between an organized, Western way of thinking and small-scale traditional life in Nepal. In sometimes hilarious fashion the film exposes the deep-rooted differences between the two worlds and shows the persistent efforts of the Finnish architects to create order in the apparent chaos of a misunderstood culture. ‘Look, that’s how we work with wood here,’ says one of the architects as he shows a Nepalese delegation around in Finland. ‘And we want to do the same in Nepal.’ The Nepalese nod politely, but know enough.

AFFR curator Jord den Hollander: “Contested Space at its best – or, rather, worst”
“A Plan for Paradise is an account, as ironic as it is sometimes amusing, of what goes wrong when a Finnish architecture office launches itself into the design of a city for 600,000 people in a valley in Kathmandu. Without any understanding of the underlying cultural conditions, they roll out Western principles across a centuries-old Nepalese society.
Both incisive and shocking, this entertaining film perfectly illustrates the theme of AFFR this year: Contested Space at its ‘best’. A must-see for every designer.”

A Plan for Paradise will have its world premiere at AFFR, and is followed by a Q&A director Kati Juurus. The evening closes with our traditional festive after-party.

Start film 20:30,
foyer opens 19:30

Theater Zuidplein
Gooilandsingel 95
3083 DP Rotterdam