Architecture, cities and concrete take to the screen at Melbourne International Film Festival

The History of Concrete

A Hallmark-style documentary about concrete is an unlikely proposition. In the hands of John Wilson, it becomes something stranger, funnier and more affecting.

Best known for the HBO series How To With John Wilson, the filmmaker begins The History of Concrete with the crumbling foundations of his apartment building. From there, his investigation moves between ancient ingenuity, modern infrastructure and our enduring impulse to leave something permanent behind.

For the design community, its appeal lies in the way an ordinary material becomes a lens through which to consider cities, mortality and what societies choose to build, preserve or abandon.

How to Listen to Fountains

Public spaces often reveal their value most clearly when they begin to disappear.

In Eva Sajanová’s 10-minute documentary How to Listen to Fountains, Bratislava’s neglected fountains are given a voice. Blending stop-motion animation, urban observation and dry humour, the film considers what is lost when public design is treated as expendable.

Its argument is simple but resonant: good urban design is not only about efficiency. It also creates beauty, delight and places where people might pause.

Mad Rush

Cities often act as backdrops in cinema. In Mad Rush, Melbourne becomes part of the tension.

The debut feature from Australian writer and director Maddelin McKenna follows a young woman drawn into an elaborate phone scam and sent on a panicked journey through the CBD. Laneways, intersections and crowded streets transform familiar Melbourne into a gritty urban Wonderland.

Seen through the protagonist’s growing vulnerability, the city becomes psychological as much as physical, demonstrating how profoundly our experience of place can shift with our state of mind.