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Film short abstract:

Based on their experiences living and working amongst Soviet-era concrete, panel-block apartments, the filmmaker together with five visual artists, examine past and present attitudes towards their former homes, especially considered in light of Russia's brutal war of aggression in Ukraine.

Film long abstract:

Based on their experiences living and working amongst Soviet-era concrete, panel-block apartments, the filmmaker, together with five visual artists, examine past and present attitudes towards their former homes. Combining touching, personal stories with experimental research on the history of twentieth-century art and architecture, the film creates both a compelling narrative, and a contemporary aesthetic of panel-block mass housing using original watercolors, put into motion using digital animation and stop-motion techniques. Interweaving global and personal histories, the film explores notions of moral and political responsibility as evinced in physical space. On February 24, 2022, Russia began a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. An early symbol of war became Soviet mass-housing blocks devastated by bombing raids, standing with missing façades and exposed furniture. In newly occupied regions of Ukraine, private Russian contractors are currently building panel-block mega-projects, arguably, to solidify Russia’s presence in the region. As former postsocialist countries have been thrust, or hang on the edge of new humanitarian and political crises, the film expresses its own rallying cry against destruction, all from the vantage point of concrete, panel-block apartments. Empathy for Concrete Things thus considers how modern architecture has become the site of both utopian fantasies, and major calamities that shaped the history of the twentieth century, and continues to shape history today.