Architektur.Film.Sommer is Movies in Wonderland´s annual showcase of architecture related films in collaboration with Vienna´s Architecture Center Az W and the cultural hub MuseumsQuartier Wien. Founded in 2013, it invites film and architecture buffs to drop in, hang out, watch and chat in the great outdoors. The focus in 2025 is on: Suburbia. From the American Dream to Peak Oil.

30.07. Opening Night: American Dreams
Under the title “American Dreams,” the opening night will deliberately address the diversity and complexity of the “American Dream.” Who benefits from it and who doesn’t? The films will expose structural inequalities that manifest themselves spatially in Suburbia, such as the gender roles lived there, and will portray the people who build these suburbs and keep them alive through their work. From Tupperware to Building the American Dream. Special guest via video message: Chelsea Hernandez (Building the American Dream).

06.08. Peak Oil – Down to the Last Drop?
The second film evening will seek answers to the so-called Peak Oil, a theory according to which global oil production reached its peak in 1971 and should have declined thereafter. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated technology, new ways of accessing oil reserves are still being found. What are the consequences of fossil capitalism for humans, animals, and the environment? These questions will be addressed in Nenets vs. Gas and A Road Not Taken, among others. Special guest: Lotte Schreiber

13.08. From the front yard toward the highway
From the Front Yard to the Highway will present, among others, Die Wüste Lebt (The Desert Lives). Oliver Ressler’s film follows the occupation of the planned “city road” through the Lobau, referred to as the “desert,” as well as the short film Split Lives, which deals with traditional building methods and massive urbanization, and Not Just Roads, which deals with the massive impact and displacement processes caused by the construction of India’s largest highway network.

20.08. Closing night: Get Together
The closing night will end the festival with a more hopeful look to the future: Get together! will present colorful, diverse models of coexistence—from community-supported agriculture in Almtal to collective forms of living in Amsterdam and a citizen-owned power plant in Lower Austria. Special guests: Danny Netkova, Martina Kuchler, Erich Lagler

This year, the event features a documentary by Wonderland, which follows up on the work on energy communities Wonderland has been engaged in through projects like PED-ACT or POSEIDON. The documentary follows the BürgerInnenKRAFTwerk energy community in Schönbühel-Aggsbach. Learn more about them here.

Here’s a listing of the film’s to be screened at the closing night:

BürgerinnenKRAFTwerk – the story of an energy community, AT 2024, 8:00 min, OmeU, R: Yilmaz Vurucu, Bahanur Nasya
Der Kurzfilm beleuchtet den Weg einer Bürgerinnen-Initiative, die sich für ein nachhaltiges Leben und eine lokale Energieerzeugung in ihrer Gemeinde einsetzt.

Blickpunkte Portrait Almgrün, AT 2024, 10:00 min, dOF, R: Arian Lehner & Dominik Kastner / Mies.Magazin
Ziel der solidarischen Landwirtschaft Almgrün ist, Grünflächen fair und ökologisch zu bewirtschaften und sie nicht weiter zu versiegeln.

Haus-Heyden-Hof, Herzogenrath, DE 2023, 32:28 min, dOF, R: Luisa Seliger, Johanna Steukers
Die Kurzdoku porträtiert den gemeinschaftlichen Bauprozess und das Zusammenleben der Holzbau-Siedlung als Alternative zur isolierten Form des Einfamilienhauses in der Vorstadt.
Ein Gemeinschaftswerk der Studentinnen Luisa Seliger und Johanna Steukers und der Lehrenden Marius Helten, Leonard Wertgen und Florian Fischer-Almannai.

Living Together: The Story of De Warren, NL 2023, 75:00 min, OmeU, R: Sam van Zoest
Der Film begleitet eine Gruppe junger Menschen bei der Gründung einer Wohnbaugenossenschaft, die nachhaltig, sozial und erschwinglich sein soll. Das Projekt ist ehrgeizig: Es ist das erste seiner Art in den Niederlanden, und keiner der jungen Pionierinnen hat jemals zuvor ein Haus gebaut.