Three years ago it was a single venue fringe event, but this year the Jasmax Film Festival will be celebrating architecture nationwide. Featuring films that explore the built environment, the Festival will be showing in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Matakana, Tauranga, Rotorua, Havelock North, Palmerston North, Nelson and Arrowtown from 23-29 August.

Image: Ora Lee's Chapel, from The Rural Studio.Three years ago it was a single venue fringe event, but this year the Jasmax Film Festival will be celebrating architecture nationwide. Featuring films that explore the built environment, the Festival will be showing in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Matakana, Tauranga, Rotorua, Havelock North, Palmerston North, Nelson and Arrowtown from 23-29 August.

Image: Ora Lee's Chapel, from The Rural Studio.Highlights include a film that focuses on Sam Mockbee's 'Rural Studio', which set out to change the impression that fine architecture is reserved for wealthy patrons and grand civic spaces.

The Rural Studio captures this innovative programme's vision, and its philosophy that seeks to transcend race and class as Mockbee guides students from Auburn University to design and construct homes and community spaces in the economically depressed Hale County, Alabama.

The Festival also features A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash, the story of how our civilisation's addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology.

Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron is the focus of this year's double feature. The short film Tate Modern is followed by The Alchemy of Building, which reflects Herzog & de Meuron's capacity to astonish. The film also explores the way in which the firm transforms what might otherwise be ordinary shapes, materials and surfaces through new treatments and techniques.

The New Zealand feature Antonello and the Architect will also screen at the festival, along with The Concrete Revolution, a film documenting China's race to prepare Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

"This year's festival once again focuses on the need to carefully consider the design of our built environment, which is crucial in creating places that embody the spirit of who we are," says Greg Boyden, managing director of Jasmax.

"Great towns and cities result from societies, communities and individuals who lay together, piece by piece, a collection of buildings and spaces that touch our hearts and inspire us."

What: 2007 Jasmax Film Festival
Presented by Jasmax and NZ Home + Entertaining
When: 23-29 August 2007

To view the full programme, visit the 2007 Jasmax Film Festival website.

23/7/07