ADFF 2026 Vancouver runs November 10-15. Opening Night starts 6pm on Tuesday, November 10th with “Mundo Frágil” at the Hollywood Theatre in Kitsilano, then films at the VIFF Centre in Yaletown. Kudos to NYC Kyle Bergman, and YVR Anne Pearson and Leah Mallen, for bringing ADFF to life every year.
You can find out more about the YVR films and tickets at https://adffvan26.eventive.org/films.
COPAN
COPAN is a 2025 social-realist science fiction documentary, directed by Carine Wallauer, set in a utopian-modernist 1966 Oscar Niemeyer building in real-world Brazil. It serves as a contemporary counterpoint to Brazil is, a 1985 dystopian science-fiction black comedy film, directed by Terry Gilliam, and set in a fictional dystopia.
In COPAN, the conflicts are political, with the local battle to be Building Administrator serving as a microcosm of the national presidential battle between Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro. In Brazil, the conflict is personal, between an individual’s search for freedom and a totalitarian bureaucracy. So while COPAN takes place in Brazil, Brazil may or may not take place in COPAN.
Mundo Frágil
Upon winning the 1987 Super Bowl, NY Giants quarterback Phil Simms famously exclaimed, “I’m going to go to Disney World!”
Upon winning the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize, Chilean architect Smiljan Radić may or may not have exclaimed, “I’m going to go to the Atacama Desert and the forests of Vilches and up into the Cordillera mountains to explore my architectural philosophy, materials, and connections to the landscape!” This illustrates a key difference between quarterbacks and architects.
The Tower That Built a City
If it weren’t for the CN Tower, the album cover of Drake’s 2016 Views could be Aubrey Graham sitting on a yellow curb in front of a 7-11 in Forest Hill North. Would that motivate him to write more interesting music? In any case, the CN Tower is an icon, and the subject of this 2026 film directed by Mark Myers, with Caitlin Cronenberg as executive producer. Speaking of which, I wonder if Caitlyn Ryan ever went on a date with Jimmy Brooks before ending up with Joey Jeremiah?
BAUHAUS FOREVER.
The Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin houses the world’s largest collection of materials on the Bauhaus. Nico Weber’s 2026 documentary explores the enduring legacy of the utopian super-school of Walter Gropius, in a museum that is fittingly both an archive and a construction site. But a key question remains unasked: Why is the museum not named the Bauhaushaus?
Googie
Googie is, among other things, a somewhat desultory architecture critic’s name for early architecture by John Lautner, who later went on to be one of the most spatially and formally innovative architects of the 20th century. Even the great Frank Lloyd Wright gets a little bit soiled by this dismissive terminology. In any case, this dynamic postwar American architecture of sweeping rooflines and dramatic angles is a mix, with the best of it serving as architectural precedent for the expansive spatial dynamism of Zaha Hadid and other global innovators. This 2026 film by Jake Gorst and Tracey Rennie Gorst documents all the movement within this movement.
Five Living Buildings
In the 90s, I traveled through Europe, and of all the architectural wonders I experienced, my favourite was the Georges Pompidou National Centre of Art and Culture in Paris, by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Five Living Buildings looks at Renzo Piano’s cultural and architectural impact through the daily lived experience of a Greek cultural center, Ugandan children’s hospital, American museum, Chinese industrial park, and the iconic high-tech Pompidou cultural complex.
Out of the Picture
The 1991 Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded, not to Venturi Scott Brown, but to Robert Venturi, inexplicably leaving out the brilliant architect Denise Scott Brown. An.Ash Smolar’s 2025 film Out of the Picture explores why female architects are often excluded by official narratives. It speaks with historians, researchers, and, of course, Denise Scott Brown. So let’s get proactive and take this bullshit by the horns.
At the highest level, in 2004 Zaha Hadid of Zaha Hadid Architects rightfully won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, the first female architect to do so. In 2010, the Pritzker honoured Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA; in 2017 Carme Pigen of RCR Arquitectes; in 2020, Yvonne Farrell & Shelly McNamara of Grafton Architects; and in 2021, Anne Lacaton of Lacaton & Vassal.
How about the excellence of Johanna Hurme? How about Marianne Amodio, Jeanne Gang, Alison Brooks, Angela Brooks, Pat Hanson, Marie-Odile Marceau and Patricia Patkau? And Lisa Landrum, Anne Pearson, Autumn Sweet, Mary Ellen Read, Sydney Schwartz, Katherine Wagner, Nancy Wong Vo, Kelly Riopelle, Colleen Dixon, Aidan Carruthers, Melissa Higgs, Bettina Takacs, Sinead Vesey, Karen Wiens-Suzuki, Leslie Barrett, Fei Cai, Karen Nelson Campbell, Olena Struk, Angela Oh, Nadia Saïd, Gerda Geldenhuis, and Leslie Jen?
These architects stay in the picture.
***
ADFF 2026 is in NYC Oct 12-17, Toronto Nov 4-7, Vancouver Nov 10-15, Mumbai Jan 13-17, Chicago Feb 18-21, Detroit TBA.
**
Derek DeLand MRAIC Architect AIBC is an award-winning Design Architect & Writer nominated for a 2026 RAIC Award. Highly creative, highly experienced, tech-savvy. Projects with 5468796, MCMP, AMA, CDA, Northern Front, Spectrum include The Post on Georgia & Migrating Landscapes for the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Work published in Architizer, Spacing, above/ground press, U of Dalian Press CN, Concrete Trends ZA, international design books & magazines. Design awards include IAKS/IOC, Ontario Concrete & BCRMCA. All-typology design, with special energy for cultural, civic, art, towers, sport, skatepark, gnarchitecture. Derek DeLand Architecture, be it minimal/maximal, primal/futurist, sculptural/cinematic, dynamic/zen, positive/negative, brutal/civilized, tectonic/stereotomic, solid/void, mute/articulate, witty/direct, is centred in the core position that architecture is first and foremost an Art. downspacecreative.com/derek-deland-portfolio
