Bêka & Partners

A video diary of a month-long immersion in the life of the Barbican, from the top floors of the towers to the underground levels of the arts centre. An intimate and lively map of this brutalist masterpiece.

After the trying constraints of lockdown and social distancing that brutally reduced urban space to its strict minimum, making it into a place where isolated individuals merely cohabit, Homo Urbanus is a cinematic odyssey offering a vibrant tribute to what we have been most cruelly deprived of: namely, public space. Taking the form of a free-wheeling journey around the world (10 films, 10 cities), the project invites us to observe in detail the multiple forms and complex interactions that exist every day between people and their urban environments. Somewhere between visual anthropology and observational cinema, these films put urban man under the microscope and encourage us to take a closer look at individual and collective behaviour, interpersonal dynamics, social tensions, and the economic and political forces that play out every day on the grand stage of the city streets.

Koolhaas Houselife portrays one of the masterpieces of contemporary architecture. The film lets the viewer enter into the house's daily intimacy through the stories and daily chores of Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper, and the other people who look after the building. Pungent, funny and touching.

25 BIS is an intimate portrait of a masterpiece from the beginning of Auguste Perret’s career: the building located on 25 Bis, Rue Franklin in Paris. The film looks for the intangible and subjective element of the building’s history: the depth of its human print. The building appears as a sedimentation of life stories where each layer has left the trace of a passage. From the intimate nature of these stories, the film draws this fragile and undefined essence that could be called “the soul of the place”.

One week in the extraordinary-ordinary life of Mr. Moriyama, a Japanese art, architecture and music enlighted amateur who lives in one of the most famous contemporary Japanese architecture, the Moriyama house, built in Tokyo in 2005 by Pritzker-prize winner Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA). Introduced in the intimacy of this experimental microcosm which redefines completely the common sense of domestic life, Ila Bêka recounts in a very spontaneous and personal way the unique personality of the owner: a urban hermit living in a small archipelago of peace and contemplation in the heart of Tokyo. From noise music to experimental movies, the film let us enter into the ramification of the Mr. Moriyama's free spirit. Moriyama-San, the first film about noise music, acrobatic reading, silent movies, fireworks and Japanese architecture!

The Sense of Tuning is a portrait of the architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai, conceived like a sketch made on the fly, captured in the vibrancy of movement and of the moment. Nothing of a hagiographic portrait giving a fixed image of the man and his work, the film explores the fragile, precious material of the architect’s sensibility with rare spontaneity, shedding light on how his perception of the emotion of space is nurtured. Conceived as a performative cinematic experience, this film captures the alchemy of a day-long encounter between Bijoy Jain and Bêka & Lemoine – twelve hours of intense wandering, plunging us into the vital energy of the streets of Mumbai. Visual notes made in the intimacy of the studio, observations of informal tactics of the city and visits to production sites, the film reveals how closely Bijoy Jain’s work is tied to the city of Mumbai, providing endless resources and inspiration. A sensory film where gesture becomes the language of intuition.

ButoHouse is a film about concrete, illumination, perseverance and hope.

Bêka & Lemoine continue their Homo Urbanus series of films about various world cities and their inhabitants, this time exploring the humans of Lisbon, the Portuguese capital.