ADFF:NY 2026 Screening: COPAN

COPAN
2025 / 97 mins / Brazil
Director: Carine Wallauer
US Premiere
Trailer

At the heart of São Paulo, the iconic COPAN building, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, houses more than 5,000 residents across 120,000 square meters. Inside, a heated election for the building’s administrator unfolds as the long-standing officeholder resists change. Beyond its walls, Brazil faces a decisive election between Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro.

Director Carine Wallauer, herself a COPAN resident, paints a portrait of this remarkable building as a microcosm of Brazilian society, where questions of democracy, community, and power play out in everyday life.

As the story unfolds, the film takes us throughout COPAN, revealing its architecture through the people who live and work there and the many different spaces they inhabit. Rather than simply observing Niemeyer’s iconic building from the outside, we experience it from within and begin to understand how its design shapes daily life. By the end of the film, we have developed an intimate understanding of COPAN, not only as an architectural landmark, but as the complex, evolving community Niemeyer designed it to contain.