Some of the most prominent names from the Australian architecture industry including Harry Seidler, Glenn Murcutt and Jørn Utzon will be spotlighted at the upcoming Archiflix Architecture and Design Film Festival in Sydney this May.

The inaugural Archiflix Architecture and Design Film Festival will be a four-day-long celebration of architecture and design through film. What began as a series of one-night only well-attended film screenings has been expanded into a festival format to accommodate the growing number of good quality films, says Archiflix director Sally Darling.

The festival is timed to coincide with the 2017 National Architecture Conference. A second instalment of the festival will take place in Melbourne in October, with satellite events planned for Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. 

The program of 12 films for Archiflix is aimed primarily at industry professionals and features a range of documentaries on the careers and practice of some of the most prominent architects to work in Australia, including Harry Seidler, Glenn Murcutt and Jørn Utzon. Documentaries on the work of international architects I.M. Pei, Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry will also screen during the festival.

Some of the program highlights include Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis, the science-fiction classic set in a stylised, expressionist underground city; director and writer Lawrence Johnston’s Neon, which documents the journey of neon lighting from Jazz Age Paris to the ‘Neon boneyard’ in Las Vegas; Visual Acoustics, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, which takes a look at the life of architectural photographer Julius Shulman, who is known for capturing the modernist movement of Southern California on film; and The Architect, a Jonathan Parker-directed romantic comedy about a couple who engage an architect to build their dream home but discover the architect is instead designing his own.

The most exemplary film will be given a judge’s award after all the films are assessed by an expert panel of judges from different disciplines. The jury includes architectural photographer John Gollings, the Australian Institute of Architects national president Ken Maher, editor Jan Henderson and film and television producer, director and writer (and festival co-founder) Ron V. Brown.

The Archiflix Architecture and Design Festival runs from 4 to 7 May at the Sydney Maritime Museum Theatre.