Villa Empain

Only in the final credits does this film give us any firm background information on its architectural subject, a magnificent art deco building in Belgium. Created in the 1930s, it has seen (and suffered) many waves of history, from German and Soviet occupation through neglect and vandalism to its ultimate reinvention today as an arts centre. Mostly avoiding images of people, Kastner approaches this place intimately and sensorially, through an experimental layering of impressions, textures, noises, vistas, reveries. Ghosts of the past stir in these cracks and shadows, these tracings and echoes. (Adrian Martin)

In the presence of Katharina Kastner.