Unfinished Spaces | |
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![]() Unfinished Spaces Logo | |
Directed by | Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray |
Produced by | Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray |
Starring | Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti, Roberto Gottardi |
Cinematography | Benjamin Murray |
Edited by | Kristen Nutile, Alex Minnick |
Music by | Giancarlo Vulcano |
Production company | Ajna Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | English Spanish |
Unfinished Spaces is a 2011 documentary film about the revolutionary design of the National Art Schools (Cuba), directed by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray. The film tells the dramatic story of the art schools from their founding by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to their eventual abandonment and fall into ruin and recent efforts to restore them.
The three visionary architects Ricardo Porro, Roberto Gottardi, and Vittorio Garatti are interviewed on camera. They talk about the intense atmosphere of revolutionary Cuba and how they strove to create an entirely new language of architecture, one without precedent. They also speak about why their design fell into disfavor and how the complex was mostly abandoned, uncompleted.
As the film shows, parts of the schools are in ruins while other parts are used today by young dancers and artists. These schools are on the watch list of the World Monuments Fund, and efforts to restore the abandoned buildings are being explored. [1]
Unfinished Spaces was produced by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray, filmmakers who became obsessed with the story of the schools' rise and downfall. The film received several important grants [2] and had its World Premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival [3] in June 2011. The film was favorably reviewed in The Hollywood Reporter [4] and LA Weekly . [5] It went on to have its Cuban premiere at Havana's 2011 Festival Internacional de Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano and win an award at the Miami International Film Festival in 2012. It was broadcast on PBS in the United States, HBO Latin America, and the "Witness" series on Al-Jazeera English.
The film was the recipient of the 2014 Society of Architectural Historians Film and Video Award and winner of a 2012 Film Independent Spirit Award. [6] [7] Unfinished Spaces also won the 2014 Society of Architecture Historians Award for Film and Video [8]
Unfinished Spaces is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. [9]
Abinadi Meza is a contemporary visual artist, sound artist, conceptual artist and filmmaker whose work references spatial and temporal perception, politics, and transformation. His paintings, sound art, videos, and installations have been presented at venues across North America and Europe, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Dunaújváros, Hungary; FILE Festival, São Paulo, Brazil; MAXXI, Rome, Italy; Helicotrema Festival, Venice, Italy; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Team Titanic, Berlin; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Sonorities Festival, Belfast, Northern Ireland; FACT, Liverpool; La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Portugal. Meza uses ephemeral materials such as text and sound to create transformative spaces and explore relationships regarding individuals and social context. As a young artist Meza studied Butoh with master teachers from Japan, Europe and South America. Later he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls (1999); a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (2004); and an Master of Architecture degree from SCI-Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles (2009).
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The National Art Schools of Cuba is one of the most important educational institutions of the Cuban nation and has been declared as "National Monument".
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Ricardo Porro Hidalgo was a Cuban-born architect. He graduated in architecture from the Universidad de la Habana in 1949 and built this year his first project Villa Armenteros in Havana, following which he spent two years in post-graduate studies at the Institute of Urbanism at the Sorbonne.
Roberto Gottardi was an Italian-Cuban architect.
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