Space and structure, cinema and architecture

Film :Lullaby to my father (2012)

Neither architecture nor cinema are intimate arts. Unlike the painter in front of his canvas, they are collective creations, requiring the mobilization of a large number of collaborators. In both cases, the aim is to translate text into form. The architect receives a program specifying functions, site, budget, materials etc., but these are merely texts that he must transform into three-dimensional spatial form. A film-maker works with a screenplay, and here too, at the outset, it's just words. The creative process consists in converting these words into images, into a temporal form. In the type of cinema I advocate, it's possible to implement an artisanal process, capable of constantly transforming itself to accommodate chance and contingencies, keeping open the dialogue with the team and the possibility of constantly reinterpreting the parameters of the project.

Lullaby to my father (2012)

Amos Gitaï follows the story of his father Munio, born in 1909 in Silesia (Poland), the son of a Prussian junker's tenant farmer. At the age of 18 , Munio moved to Berlin and Dessau to study at the Bauhaus with Walter Gropius, Vassilli Kandinsky and Paul Klee. In 1933, the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, who accused Munio of treason against the German people. Munio was imprisoned, then deported to Basel. He left for Palestine. On arrival in Haifa, he began a career as an architect, adapting European modernist principles to the Middle East.

"The film is a journey in search of the relationship between father and son, architecture and cinema, historical events and fragments of intimate memories. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and even more like a kaleidoscope: voices blend together, as do the faces of Jeanne Moreau, Hanna Schygulla, damaged photos, memories and relics. The quest is entirely personal, which is precisely how it becomes universal, combining a relationship with the land and its history (the Gitai family's journey is inseparable from the founding of the State of Israel), rootedness and vagrancy, attraction and repulsion."

Pascal Mérigeau, CinéObs, January 17, 2013

Letters received by Munio Weinraub during his studies at the Bauhaus, then after his expulsion to Switzerland

Certificate from Mies van der Rohe certifying that Munio Weinraub supervised the construction of the German pavilion for the " L'habitat de notre temps " exhibition, working inhis studio from November 1930 to May 1931. Amos Gitaï's personal archives.

Download the certificate

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Certificate from Mies van der Rohe certifying that Munio Weinraub attended lectures at the Bauhaus in Dessau fromOctober 1931 to March 1932. Amos Gitaï's personal archive.