The film festival dedicated to architecture and design projects has presented its 7th edition
The 2019 edition of the Milano Design Film Festival (MDFF), which will take place from October 24 to 27, 2019, was presented on January 31 at the Conference Room of the Foundation of the Order of Architects, Planners, Landscape Architects and Conservators of the Province of Milan. The Festival, as stated by its two founders and directors Antonella Dedini and Silvia Robertazzi, offers the chance to get to know the world of design through cinema or – vice versa – to discover cinema as a tool to narrate architecture and design. During the five days of the event over 60 films will be shown, starting from the opening at the Triennale di Milano and the inauguration at the Anteo Palazzo del Cinema, where the entire festival will take place.
Above Silvia Robertazzi - Photo credits ©MDFF
Above Antonella Dedini - Photo credits ©MDFF
“Mind The Gap” continues a journey started in the previous editions of the Milano Design Film Festival, in particular the last one titled “Fast-changing”. The focus was on the future and emerging design challenges, investigating which teachings and virtuous practices of the past “we should carry into the future as positive or negative examples”. At the ends were technology on the one hand, that of a future which is imagined or to imagine, and on the other hand the history of the “monumenta”, the physical elements, which in their material nature narrate and represent us on in our everyday life. The theme of the MDFF 2019 will be “Mind The Gap” and aims at being a reflection on today’s digital revolution.Digital revolution which has characterized – and deeply marked – the last years, a revolution which has brought changes and often disruptions: the creation of new jobs, different ways of working, new aesthetics and mainly a change in social relations.
On the one hand technology, which every day lets us experience the future imagined by Ridley Scott in Blade Runner, and the urgent need to find efficient solutions to global problems as soon as possible; on the other hand the history of shapes and objects which in their materiality narrate and represent us in our everyday life. A contribution in this direction is that given by designer Dieter Rams with “less but better”, who – paraphrasing architect Mies Van Der Rohe’s famous quote – collected in a volume the designer’s creations, or better explored the ideas, criteria and methods at the base of Rams’s creations, revealing how a changing culture of the production of goods gave life to universal benchmarks for design.
The new elements announced for the MDFF 2019 opening in October will be an award, the Architecture Film Award (AFA), and the presence of an international Guest Curator
In particular, the Architecture Film Award will be the first international award dedicated to cinema and architecture, instituted by the Milano Design Film Festival and the Foundation of the Architects of Milan, with the goal to encourage the production of films dedicated to architecture and more in general to design, as well as enhance the use of an audiovisual language as a communication tool for architects.
Photo credits ©MDFFThe award will have two categories: “Architecture’s Film” for films (medium-length and feature films) about ancient, modern and contemporary architecture, and Studio’s Film for audiovisual projects commissioned by architecture firms to promote their activity.
The President of the jury will be Marco Müller, historian and film critic, professor at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio and director of numerous festivals: Pesaro, Rotterdam, Locarno, Venice and Rome.
This year’s Guest Curator will instead be journalist and famous design critic Alice Rawsthorn.
Furthermore, the collaboration with the Triennale di Milano, the Fondazione Dioguardi and ProViaggiArchitettura, as well as with other important businesses in the sector, has been confirmed for 2019.
