On the Stage: Villain Strategies
In 2025, AFFR again zooms in on urgent spatial questions through three carefully curated program lines, each offering a unique perspective on architecture. In Villain Strategies, the relationship between architecture and power takes centre stage.
A selection of powerful documentaries expose how architecture can be weaponised, not just symbolically, but through highly specific strategies of displacement, exploitation and cultural appropriation. From Cape Town and New York, to Jerusalem and Damascus, these films trace the exact mechanisms behind spatial injustice: legal loopholes, aesthetic mandates, state-sanctioned redevelopment, intimidation, and the deliberate rewriting of history. Rather than focusing on the damage, Villain Strategies unpacks the playbook through which architecture becomes a tool of systemic oppression.
In the programme Villain Strategies
Mother City
The legacy of apartheid is alive and well in the urbanism of Cape Town, where Reclaim The City activists are fighting a David versus Goliath battle against spatial injustice. A fascinating portrait of bravery in the face of violence, racism and corruption.
Slumlord Millionaire
A portrait of the power of developers and injustice in (social) housing in New York, but also the community activism that arises against it. Told from the perspective of three smart and assertive women of colour.
Rule of Stone
Dispossession by design. An investigation into the importance of Jerusalem stone, a material that architects must use to give Jerusalem its unique aesthetic quality. A story about the direct political implications of architecture, and of stone in particular.
Shorts: Banality of Evil & Intro Charlie Clemoes
Evil often arises from the most petty actions and seemingly harmless technologies. In this film programme you will see three fascinating stories about (small-scale) evil: you learn how a fake city in Germany is used as a training base against the IRA, how a neighbourhood in Syria is demolished out of revenge, and about the arbitrary decisions that have to be made by the workers who ‘control’ self-driving cars.