13.03.2025
Le FIFA 43 gives a Tribute prize to star architecture duo: Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine
The International Festival of Films on Art is pleased to announce that, as part of its 43rd edition, it will be awarding a Tribute Prize to the star duo of architecture: Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine. Artist-videographers, producers and editors, they have been working together for over 15 years on a body of work that is distinguished primarily by experimentation with new narrative and cinematographic forms in relation to contemporary architecture and the urban world.
Selected in 2017 by Icon Design as one of the 100 most talented personalities of the year, their films were featured by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art among the “most exciting and critical design projects of 2016”. Bêka & Lemoine’s complete body of work was acquired in 2016 by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for its permanent collection.Introduced by the New York Times as “cult figures of European architecture”, their films have been hailed by international critics as “having transformed the way we look at and narrate architecture and the city” (Domus).
“We want to invite the sense of wonder felt when entering a space” — Ila Bêka
Regularly exhibited at major cultural events and prestigious institutions such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Rome’s MAXXI, Milan’s Fondazione Prada, Copenhagen’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and Barbican Center, their films have also won awards at major film festivals such as CPH:DOX (Copenhagen), DocAviv (Tel Aviv), Chicago International Film Festival (Chicago), Torino Film Festival (Turin), among others.
Bêka & Lemoine are regularly invited to lecture and teach at prestigious universities, such as GSD / Harvard University (USA), GSAPP Columbia University (New-York, USA), AAP / Cornell University (USA), Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland), Bartlett School of Architecture / UCL (London, UK). From 2019 to 2021 Bêka & Lemoine directed the “Laboratory for Sensitive Observers” (M.Arch.) master’s course at the Architectural Association School (AA) in London. In 2018, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine were laureates of the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto and Ila Bêka was awarded the Rome Prize as Italian Fellow in Architecture at the American Academy in Rome.
Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine will receive the FIFA Tribute Award on March 16.
North-American premiere and Master Class 1
The Sense of Tuning
The Sense of Tuning is a portrait of architect Bijoy Jain, founder of Studio Mumbai, an architectural firm, designed as a sketch captured in the moment, immersed in the dynamic flow of movement and the present. Far from an idealized portrait that would freeze the image of the man and his work, the film explores the fragile and precious nature of the architect’s sensitivity with spontaneity, highlighting how his perception of the emotion of space is nourished. Conceived as a performative cinematic experience, the film presents a twelve-hour encounter between Bijoy Jain and directors Bêka & Lemoine, exploring the energy of Mumbai. Through intimate scenes in the studio, observations of the city, and visits to production sites, it shows how Bijoy Jain’s work is deeply influenced by Mumbai, a source of resources and inspiration.
Bêka & Lemoine celebrate with The Sense of Tuning Bijoy Jain’s architectural sensitivity and creative intuition, in a sensory film where gesture becomes the language of intuition.
Presented on March 15, 2025 at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the screening is preceded by a master class by Bêka & Lemoine: how to film architecture?
In partnership with Provencher Roy, le Consulat général de France à Québec, Kollectif et le Centre Canadien d’Architecture (CCA).
