SOLARIS FILMPRODUKTIONMICROTOPIA - SOLARIS FILMPRODUKTION

Microtopia – a documentary about micro dwellings, downsizing and living off the grid.

REVIEWS AND REWARDS

“Jesper Wachtmeister’s films are no howling alarms, they don’t have dramatic voice-overs or points to hammer home, but like the poet or the pop singer he has taken the privilege to let other narrators point to alternatives – different people that talk about how they have sketched out, maybe also launched, thoughts of another way of living. No finished solutions, but just poetic, dreamy. With stunning images by Kenneth Svedlund.” DN

”For the visionary and provocative approach to living, sophisticated and refined in the choice of photography and editing. A bold statement on the concept of home and personal choices of living.” Special Mention, CinemAmbiente Environmental Film Festival, Italy.

ABOUT THE FILM

Microtopia presents dreams of life in small, mobile or temporary spaces. Several successful architects, builders and artists from different parts of the world propose a radical solution to living space in which all unnecessary things are removed and seemingly old and worn-out items are utilised. Behind all this is a simple question: How much space, stuff and comfort do we really need? Whether building islands from garbage, tents hanging from trees, micro-homes on wheels, residential sleeping pods or experimental urban parasitic architecture, they are united by the effort to find ways to form new communities without environmental consequences.

How would you feel about carrying your home in your pocket or having clothes to live in? For most of us, “house” means stability, structure, and permanence. In an age of increasing population and technological gains, today’s mobile society has resulted in a demand, or perhaps a dream, for portable dwellings and dwellings in new settings and situations.
Microtopia explores how architects, artists and ordinary problem-solvers are pushing the limits to find answers to their dreams of portability, flexibility – and of creating independence from “the grid”. Modern nomads, homeless people, people in stress, people in need of privacy or seclusion. We hear about the personal reasons behind the dwellings, and to see how they actually work. On the sidewalk, on rooftops, in industrial landscapes and in nature we will see and feel how these abodes meet the dreams set up by their creators. Microtopia deals with a contemporary urgent ideas that are addressed, and solved, in a very surprising way.

LINK TO REVIEWS

FACTS

Microtopia
Documentary
Duration 55min and 52min.
Director Jesper Wachtmeister
Producer Jonas Kellagher
Co-Producer SVT AB, AVRO, SBS
Distributor Autlook Filmsales
© Solaris Filmproduktion, Eight Millimetres AB & SVT AB 2013

Microtopia on Vimeo On Demand

TRAILER

FESTIVALS 2014

Doxa Documentary Festival, Vancouver
Durban IFF, South Africa
Planete+ Doc Film Festival, Poland
One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Prague
Milano Design Film Festival
RIBA’s Love Architecture festival / Sheffield Design Week, UK
A Design Film Festival 2014, Singapore
Copenhagen Architecture Festival x FILM
Urban Films – Urban Design and Architecture Film Festival, Australia
CinemAmbiente Environmental Film Festival, Italy
Urban TV, Spain
EIDF, 11th EBS International Documentary Festival, South Korea
Festival do Rio, Brazil
Archfilm, Sweden
Planet In Focus, Toronto
Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival , Qatar
XII International Film and Television Festival on Urban Life and Ecology, Spain
Istanbul Design Biennial, Turkey
Burlington City Arts in affiliation with Vermont International Film Festival