Film

  • Luc Durand Leaving Delhi
  • GRANTEE
    Etienne Desrosiers
    GRANT YEAR
    2015

Etienne Desrosiers, film still, Luc Durand and Jeet Malhotra in front of Le Corbusier's Assembly, 2012, Chandigarh, India.

Canadian architect Luc Durand's career mirrors the hopes and achievements of modernism. He studied in Switzerland with Montparnasse Tower's Eugene Beaudoin, built numerous structures in Nehru's India (where he met Pierre Jeanneret in Chandigarh), designed both the Quebec Pavillion for the iconic Expo ’67 and the monumental Athletes’ Housing complex for the 1976 Olympic Games. Now at 84, he's back in New Delhi, invited by the Max Mueller Bhavaan Institute. He drifts in India's capital looking for his numerous projects but instead finds an amnesiac city morphed into a gigantic megalopolis. Luc Durand Leaving Delhi offers a fascinating yet witty dialogue between East and West, past and present, hope and pragmatism, urban planning and late capitalism.

Filmmaker and curator Etienne Desrosiers studied cinema and comparative literature in Montreal. Since 1995, he has directed ten films broadcast on television and screened worldwide, most notably at the Centre Georges-Pompidou, including Mirrors (2007), starring Xavier Dolan. His awards include Best Film at the Festival del Palazzo Venetia and Best Film for Youth at the Reggio Film Festival. His curatorial practice has encompassed Luc Durand's retrospective in five Canadian cities (2009–14), a monograph, and numerous essays, for publications such as Domus magazine. He has curated presentations internationally, at the Australian Film and Television Institute, London's Lux Centre, and Moscow's Kino35. In 1995, he organized the first Situationist films retrospective in North America. He was a photographer for the Eastern Townships Film Commission, has written for the National Film Board of Canada, and has worked with Todd Haynes (I’m Not There) and John Maybury (Love Is The Devil).