Part of the Real Utopias Film Program, curated by Konstantia Kontaxis. Real Utopias is part of the series A City of the People, organized by MOAD and curated by Rina Carvajal, MOAD’s Executive Director and Chief Curator.
(2017), 88 minutes, Directed by Bart Simpson
Located 2000 kilometers from the Amazon and eighteen hours from Rio, the city of Brasília—the capital of Brazil—is a mythical place: a concrete utopia born out of the desert. In 1956 at the rebirth of Brazilian democracy, visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer and urbanist Lúcio Costa invented an urban plan and structures that would attempt to micromanage the daily activity of human life. The unabashed goal was to create the space that would birth “the new Brazilian citizen.” Now the stark beauty of the city acts as a backdrop to isolation, changing values, and the dynamic power and politics of today’s Brazil. Brasília: Life After Design takes us to a city rarely seen by the international viewer: what is it like to live in someone else’s idea?