Vacancy

Brasília, the "city of hope", "the ultimate utopia of the 20th century" (Umberto Eco), is being conserved as a cultural heritage today. It is a place as old as the filmmaker. Segments of amateur footage and of feature films shot on location in the early sixties are inserted in his 1998 travelogue. The utopian city as represented in Vacancy is a place abandoned from its inhabitants, a museum kept alive by its staff only.

(Matthias Müller)


In its relentless looking back on the past and its inability to envision a future, Vacany is the quintessential millennial film. Misguided notions of progress...