In Kumrovec in 1974, communist authorities built the Memorial Home for WWII Resistance Fighters and Youth of Yugoslavia, a building that has lain dormant since its closure in 1991. Ivan Ramljak’s atmospheric spatial study Home of the Resistance stares through the modernist architectural elegance to reveal, within its ruined walls, the spectres of the past. Edward Lawrenson’s Uppland (made with architect Killian Doherty) looks at the remote highlands of Liberia, where a once thriving mining town now stands abandoned, decaying and desolate: a concrete ruin in the West African bush. It is a film about architecture; the remnants of colonialism; and the spiritual cost of industrial mining.

Home of the Resistance | Ivan Ramljak | 2018 | Croatia | 50’
Uppland | Edward Lawrenson | 2018 | UK, Ireland | 29’

+ Q&A with directors Ivan Ramljak and Edward Lawrenson, hosted by Henrietta Williams (filmmaker, photographer and academic, The Bartlett School of Architecture). Both films are UK Premieres.

In partnership with UCL Urban Laboratory

“Home of the Resistance is nominated for the Emerging International Filmmaker Award Ivan Ramljak (b. 1974) is a film critic, director and independent curator. He has directed nine short films, four fiction films, four documentaries and an experimental film. His most successful film Kino Otok (Islands of Forgotten Cinemas) has screened at more than 30 International festivals, and won 6 awards, including the FIPRESCI prize for Best Eastern European documentary at goEast FF in Wiesbaden. In 2016 he enrolled the Master study of Documentary Directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.”