2019 Film Festival
film synopsis
While studying the late Luis Barragán, Mexico's most famous architect, conceptual artist Jill Magid hit a wall that halted her research: a Swiss company owns the rights to Barragán's expansive archives and has kept them from public view for 20 years. Determined to shake the tree of rigid copyright laws and force the head of the Barragán Foundation to loosen its iron grip, Magid ignites a spellbinding game of cat and mouse, resorting to unorthodox and at times jaw-dropping methods of persuasion. Is Magid's action a grotesque form of manipulation? Or an ingenious act of rebellion? Executive produced by Oscar®-winning documentarian Laura Poitras, Magid's provocative and eye-opening documentary confronts crucial moral questions of whether a corporate body should be entitled to the ownership of a single person's life and legacy. At once an elegiac celebration of Barragán and his invaluable work, Magid's probing debut also unravels like a taut mystery, heading toward an unforgettable, gut-twisting finale.