Florian Zeyfang, Alexander Schmoeger, Lisa Schmidt-Colinet
Institute Above-Ground (2015)
A Film by Florian Zeyfang / Lisa Schmidt-Colinet / Alexander Schmoeger
World Premiere at the 65. Berlinale 2015, Forum Expanded
Institute Above-Ground is a documentary film about one of the early, euphoric building experiments made right after the Cuban revolution. The architecture of Vittorio Garatti’s „Instituto téchnologico de suelos y fertilizantes André Voisin“ feels futuristic. From its opening in 1965 until its closing, about 2000 students of agriculture learned, lived, worked, ate, and slept there. The complex was later transformed into an army prison, and is now empty. The ruin lies like a stranded spaceship in the flatlands near Güines, an ark for ideas yet to be realized.
Camera: Florian Zeyfang, Lisa Schmidt-Colinet, Alexander Schmoeger
Archive images: Studio Vittorio Garatti
Album: José Mosquera
Text: Florian Zeyfang, Lisa Schmidt-Colinet, Alexander Schmoeger
Montage: Florian Zeyfang
Music: "Terrain A", 2013 and "Terrain B", 2014, Moritz Fehr
Film excerpt: "La nueva escuela", 1973, Jorge Fraga
Sound Design: Moritz Fehr, Florian Zeyfang
Digital Mastering: Christoph Manz
Thanks to: Vittorio Garatti, José Mosquera, Christian Zecchin, Andrea Vertura, LASA laboratorio artístico de San Agustín, Danay Gil Martínez, Alicia Horta Higueras, Ruth Buchanan, Francesca Kaufmann, Chiara Repetto, Judith Hopf