Empathy for Concrete Things 2023

Directed by Gregory Gan

Based on their experiences living and working amongst Soviet-era concrete, panel-block apartments, the filmmaker, together with five visual artists, examine past and present attitudes towards their former homes. Combining touching, personal stories with experimental research on the history of twentieth-century art and architecture, the film creates both a compelling narrative, and a contemporary aesthetic of panel-block mass housing using original watercolors, put into motion using digital animation and stop-motion techniques. As global and personal histories interweave, the film explores notions of moral and political responsibility as evinced in physical space.