Skin of Glass

When director Denise Zmekhol revisits the architectural masterpiece of her late father, a modernist skyscraper in São Paulo, Brazil, she discovers it is occupied by hundreds of unhoused people. The building is marked by controversy. Once a headquarters for the police force of a dictatorial government and later a site of anarchist artwork, it was most recently taken over by housing activists in an attempt to transform their city. Through the stories of people with a passionate connection to her father’s work, Zmekhol helps us understand the building as a reflection of Brazil’s political and economic turmoil over the last half century.

This film is screening as a part of ADFF:NY 23