Heinz Emigholz: Schindler's Houses April 7, 2008

"I would happily rank Schindler’s Houses on the short list of essential modern movies about our city’s physical and social geography." Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly

For the past 15 years, the idiosyncratic Berlin filmmaker Heinz Emigholz has created a series of films documenting the work of certain 20th-century architects for whom he feels a special affinity. What attracts him particularly is the complex organization of interior spaces and the spatial relations between a building and its immediate surroundings. So this encounter with the “space architecture” of fellow maverick Rudolph Schindler, who practiced in Los Angeles from 1922 to 1953, seems not only natural but almost inevitable, and Schindler’s Houses has become the most popular of Emigholz’s architecture films, even as his rejection of all the clichés and conventions of architectural photography has sparked controversy. Schindler’s Houses is also a witty and incisive portrait of Los Angeles, perhaps the best documentary about the city ever made.

In person: Heinz Emigholz

Co-sponsored by the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House. Los Angeles Filmforum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive are presenting additional films by Heinz Emigholz. For more information, see www.filmforum.org, www.lacma.org, and www.cinema.ucla.edu.

The Jack H. Skirball Screening Series is curated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud