In January, ADFF:STIR Mumbai will present a variety of narratives and viewpoints honoring the various realms that architecture and design inhabit and how they connect with the cinematic medium. From January 9–12, 2025, the renowned National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, will host the South Asian premiere of the largest film festival devoted to architecture and design. The event will feature more than 20 international films over four days, as well as a comprehensive talks lineup, a pavilion park, and other special projects.
The first-ever cross-disciplinary glimpse into the creative disciplines in an inclusive style, ADFF:STIR Mumbai is planned to foster real connections and interaction with both creatives and enthusiasts. The large-scale display follows a successful curtain-raising event for ADFF in Mumbai earlier this year, which served as a preview of what was to come. In a same vein, the festival will turn the famous NCPA into a bustling center to house these many worlds, giving guests new opportunities to interact with architecture and design via the medium of film. The exhibition, which follows months of preparation with Bergman, is made possible by the belief of practitioners, experts, students, and enthusiasts who bring together the greatest design, innovation, discussion, and radical points of view about our built environment.
The festival will feature more than 20 international architectural and design-focused films, some of which will be shown for the first time in South Asia. Globally recognized designers and architects will respond to a curatorial brief called “Frame of Reference” with site-specific installations in Pavilion Park, further ensuring that the festival is contextualized for its broad audience. As presented by JSW, the park and the artwork on exhibit are ready to immerse visitors in other worlds, akin to stepping into a movie. Additionally, a carefully planned public program that includes book readings, critiques, performances, workshops, and a calendar of talks in a fresh format is planned to promote broader viewpoints and personal interactions. ~log(ue).
By using the festival as a platform and exploring the vibrant world of film, STIR presents itself as a force behind the industry’s much-needed interdisciplinary contamination of cultural debate. Emphasizing the interconnectedness of the creative domains of visual culture, performing arts, design, and architecture has always been the aim of STIR. Film is a perfect illustration of how architecture both affects and is impacted by other professions. Architecture is inextricably linked to the world of film because it provides a backdrop for storytelling and is a storytelling medium in and of itself. Film and architecture both influence our social and conscious collective, which in turn shapes cultural discourse. Events like the ADFF:STIR festival only serve to highlight this essential link, fostering the connections between the two and providing food for both our minds and our imaginations, according to Amit Gupta, founder and editor-in-chief of STIR.
The films: Architecture and Design framed
The festival will provide spectators a unique perspective on the principles that underpin architecture and related artistic endeavors through a variety of screenings across three public days and a special Red Carpet Premiere Night on January 9. The films, which span many geographical locations and are part of a carefully selected and sourced lineup, will present fresh perspectives on the human side of design, the lives of well-known designers, the guiding principles of our built environment, and the goals and lived realities of people in the modern era.
Highlights consist of A special restored and remastered 20th-anniversary screening of the Oscar-nominated film My Architect, a documentary about American architect Louis Kahn by his son Nathaniel Kahn, will also be shown during the red carpet premiere of This is Not a House (2023), which describes the construction of the unique Hill House in Montecito designed by Robin Donaldson of Donaldson+Partners. This house was created through the combined power of art, technology, and a celebration of play. The following films will also explore other creative fields: Biocentrics (2022), which examines how nature could serve as a model for changing our world; Modernism, Inc.: The Eliot Noyes Design Story (2023), which tells the life and impact of the influential architect who popularized modernist thinking and established a corporate design aesthetic at IBM; and Fashion Reimagined (2022), which offers a glimpse into the possibilities for a sustainable transformation in fashion design. In addition to screenings of The Genius of Place: The Life and Work of Geoffrey Bawa (2023), which also provides insights into the work of the Sri Lankan architect best known for sharing ideas, The Promise: Architect BV Doshi (2023), with a special emphasis on South Asian perspectives, will highlight the legacy of the master Indian architect. E.1027-Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea (2024) subversively recounts the building and eventual destruction of a villa in the south of France, designed by the Irish architect, adding to the canon of modernist architecture that has frequently extolled the singular genius of the male architect.
“The idea has always been to showcase the best films possible for any edition of ADFF. Building on that, certain themes emerged for the South Asian premiere. While spotlighting critical voices from the region, the films span topics from global climate change concerns to the role of women in architecture,” shares Kyle Bergman, Director, and Founder, ADFF.
JSW Pavilion Park: Frames of Reference
The lively Pavilion Park, funded by JSW and centered around the Open Air Plaza and the Experimental Garden at the NCPA, will serve as the focal point of public engagement over the three public days. This adds another dimension to the complex ADFF event: STIR Mumbai. Beyond the screen, a carefully chosen selection of immersive installations will enhance how the general audience views and experiences this nexus of design and film. The pavilions, created by prominent architects and designers from India and beyond in association with top material and installation partners, provide ground-breaking, creative answers to a particular curatorial brief that the STIR curators developed. The site-specific solutions also attempt to create an inclusive environment that allows for several conversations and isn’t restricted to a single point of view.
Throughout the festival, the “Frames of Reference” will be on exhibit, enabling guests to unwind in between presentations and movies while also serving as discussion starters. A wide variety of designers are expected to contribute their distinct styles to the area, including Matharoo Associates and reD Architects, with assistance from Artize; SPASM Design, with assistance from Jaipur Rugs and FCML; UHA London, with assistance from Saraf Foundation; SHROFFLEóN, in association with Jindal Stainless; Tania and Sandeep Khosla; Manish Gulati and Shruti Gupte, in association with ICA Pidilite; Matthew and Ghosh Architects; LOCO Design; and Supraja Rao, in association with Shabnam Gupta, Apoorva Shroff, Quirk Studio, and Swanzal Kak Kapoor, with production assistance from FTS, based in Gurugram.
“The four tenets shaping the debut edition of ADFF:STIR Mumbai—films, ~log(ue), the pavilion park and special projects—make visible how the built environment choreographs and often governs our ways of knowing, being and doing. They have been handpicked to create cross-cultural dialogue and much-needed interdisciplinary contamination that is tangible and palpable. Through these, we hope to engage the wider public with architecture and design more deeply, and potentially contribute to the shifting paradigms of creative production in the region,” states Samta Nadeem, Festival Curator and Curatorial Director at STIR.
A dynamic talks programme: Framing ~log(ue) and log/ लोग
The festival’s metadisciplinary conversation will be further enhanced by STIR’s special talks program, ~log(ue). Under this name, STIR organizes innovative meetings involving leading experts from the fields of art, architecture, design, fashion, movies, and more by bridging people (log/लोग) and conversation (~logues). In a new avatar for ADFF:STIR combines a dynamic and experimental approach to engage visitors with four different ways to initiate discussions. Through some of the interactive forms, the audience also takes up peripheral participation by influencing the conversation. Analog interactions across the festival site, including readings, seminars, performances, and critiques, will promote a sense of community and belonging.
Speakers will include notable names such as filmmakers and influential theatre personalities including Hansal Mehta, Anand Gandhi, Dar Gai, Gauri Shinde, Megha Ramaswamy, Avijit Mukul Kishore and Bruce Guthrie; thought leaders Rohit Chawla, Swati Bhattacharya and Ranjit Hoskote; architects Sameep Padora of sP+a, Khushnu Hoof, Principal of Studio Sangath, Shimul Javeri Kadri, conservationist Abha Narain Lambah, Ayaz Basrai of Busride Studio, Akshat Bhatt from Architecture Discipline and artist/ architect Vishal Dar; curators from some of the foremost museums in the world including Martino Stierli from MoMA and Meneesha Kellay, Senior Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; academics such as Kaiwan Mehta, Dean of Balwant Sheth School of Architecture, and Rohan Shivkumar, Dean of Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA); artists and visionaries including Dayanita Singh, Thukral & Tagra and Gaurav Ogale; entrepreneurs and philanthropists Sangita Jindal and Tarini Jindal Handa from JSW, along with Radha Goenka of RPG Foundation; curator; and Creative Director, Pavitra Rajaram.
Special Projects
By including a number of special initiatives within the event’s curatorial framework, STIR ensures that everyone has a fun-filled weekend. A key component of the program is Jim Stephenson’s architectural photographer and filmmaker The Architect has Left the Building, which was first commissioned by RIBA in London and funded in Mumbai by the British Council. Stephenson, Simon James, and Sofia Smith’s video installation project explores how architecture is utilized and how its rooms are occupied after the PR shots are completed and the architect departs. In addition to the show, Stephenson and James will recruit city-based photographers and filmmakers to expand on the storyline of his initial exhibition by producing unique scenes for a reimagined version of the project. A unique partnership between Asian Paints, Chromacosm, and New York-based architect Suchi Reddy is also included, marking the debut of the international behemoth’s largest paint color collection in history. The concept will transform the two-dimensionality of screen pixels and paints into an immersive, three-dimensional experience by allowing a constellation of more than 2000 colors to come together and concurrently fade to darkness through a “forest of reeds.”
ADFF:STIR Mumbai promises to be a sensory extravaganza that will provide opportunities to grow the creative community and economy in the area and beyond. It will showcase a wide range of stories from around the world, not only about how architecture and design are created but also how they play a crucial role in our lives. Platforming a diverse array of stories from around the world, not only about how architecture and design are produced but also how they are instrumental in the way we conduct our lives, ADFF:STIR Mumbai promises to be a sensorial extravaganza and will open up avenues to expand the creative community and economy in the region and beyond.
