The Martin Centre Research Seminar: The Islanders: An Encounter Between Architecture and Documentary Cinema

Adam W. Pugliese, architect, and Maxime Faure, filmmaker.

Lecture abstract:
A 60-minute screening of the film The Islanders, followed by a 30-minute discussion and Q&A session with Adam W. Pugliese & Maxime Faure.
The Islanders was filmed over several months with families in a large housing estate in Haute-Savoie (France), facing imminent demolition as part of a national urban renewal program (ANRU). The film documents the ordeal of involuntary relocation, capturing the disappearance of homes that were lived in, inhabited, and valued. It explores architecture as a collective process, a palimpsest of lives, stories, and attachments, and contrasts the institutional logic of demolition and reconstruction with the fragile, essential rhythms of everyday life. The film critically examines systematic demolition, offering insights into working with existing places and inhabitants to honor the dignity of the lives and architectures involve.

Speaker bio:
Adam W. Pugliese, architect, and Maxime Faure, filmmaker, weave common threads between documentary practice and architecture: fieldwork, a sensitive approach to territory, and a deep attentiveness to those who inhabit and construct it. Together, they propose a dialogue between cinema and architecture through films, photographs, and exhibition. Their first film, The Islanders (2021), selected in several architecture and film festivals (Venice, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Paris, Marseille…) and received the Audience Award at the International Political Film Festival, the Jury Prize at the Rhodope International Documentary Film Festival in Bulgaria. In 2023, the film was included in the exhibition Atmosphérique at the Arc en rêve architecture centre in France. Adam and Maxime regularly lead workshops and give lectures in schools of architecture, where they share their cross-disciplinary practice. They are currently working on two new feature-length documentary films. In 2025, in collaboration with the urban planner Lorène Chiron, they presented in Casablanca a multimedia exhibition at the French Institute showcasing six years of research on the use of the “fusée céramique” technology in Morocco.