Special Screening: HU ENIGMA

Coming to NYC’s Maysles Cinema as part of “Street Views,” a new series exploring connections between individuals and their environments, this Thursday, April 5: HU ENIGMA

Pedro Urano and Joana Traub Csekö’s unique exploration of Brazilian architecture and politics made its world premiere last November at CPH:DOX. Since then it has also screened at Brazilian fest Tiradentes, where it took home an award, and at Toulouse.

The titular puzzle of Urano and Csekö’s film is an unusual, imposing university hospital in Rio de Janeiro. As is quickly established, the behemoth building which houses the hospital is only partially occupied – the other half, referred to colloquially as the “lame leg,” has never been completed. A sort of cousin to Cuba’s National Art Schools project, as featured in UNFINISHED SPACES, politics too had their role in the building’s ultimate fate. End cards and interviews with individuals connected to the hospital reveal the history of the structure as a utopian modernist project dating back to the 1950s, but it’s in the film’s striking imagery of the ruined side, sometimes shown in splitscreen, juxtaposed with the hospital activities in its better half, that its schizophrenia comes alive. The filmmakers’ exploration of both halves of the space is imbued with a deliberate, lyrical rhythm that builds to a surprisingly dramatic conclusion.