The Match Factory Boards Victor Kossakovsky’s A24-Backed Berlinale Doc ‘Architecton’

The Match Factory has acquired international rights to Russian director Victor Kossakovsky’s new documentary Architecton ahead of its Berlinale world premiere.

The film project follows the filmmaker’s farmyard doc Gunda, which played in Berlinale Encounters in 2020, and Aquerala, which world premiered Out of Competition In Venice in 2018.

The Match Factory describes Kossakovsky’s new film as “an epic, intimate and poetic meditation” on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal mankind’s present destruction.

Focusing on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele de Lucci, Kossakovsky reflects on the rise and fall of civilizations, using imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to AD 60, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023.

“Victor Kossakosvsky possesses the remarkable ability to amplify seldom-heard voices on the screen. Demonstrating his mastery in previous works like Gunda and Aquarela, he now skillfully integrates architecture, geography, environment, and anthropology into a singular cinematic experience with Architecton, presenting an extraordinary visual narrative,” said The Match Factory MD Michael Weber.

Architecton is produced by Heino Deckert for Germany’s Ma.ja.de.

A24 financed and will distribute the film in North America. Neue Visionen is bringing the film to German cinemas. This is the first collaboration between Victor Kossakovsky and The Match Factory.

Further Berlinale titles on The Match Factory include Golden Bear contender Dying by Matthias Glasner in Panorama title Scorched Earth by Thomas Arslan in Panorama and Above The Dust by Wang Xiaoshuai in Generation Kplus.