Finalist, ‘7th Sector’ Documentary in XIX Istanbul International Architecture and Urban Films Festival

The festival is organize every year by the Istanbul Metropolitan Branch of the Chamber of Architects
and was held last October 13-18 2025 at Bariş Manço Cultural Center in Istabul, Turkey.
7th Sector is a collaborative documentary born out of the Spotlight Summer School on Documentary
Filmmaking in Social Sciences held in Bucharest, Romania in 2024. Co-directed by James Clifford
Viloria (Eotvos Lorand University), Isabel Pastor Fernández (University of Basel), and Julia
Bantouvaki (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt [Oder], Germany), the film delves into the
case of Aversa, one of Central and Eastern Europe’s most renowned industrial sites whose demolition
reflects the broader tensions of Romania’s post-communist transformation.
Through its reflective lens, 7th Sector interrogates the cost of building a modern capitalist European
state after the fall of communism. It connects memory, architecture, and national identity, turning the
destruction of an industrial landmark into a cinematic meditation on urban change and historical
erasure.
The documentary has been screened in Bucharest and Poland. It was also presented in Budapest in
November 2024, alongside other documentaries, followed by a discussion on the use of audiovisuality
in capturing urban space. The discussion featured Márton Berki, Senior Lecturer at the Department
of Social and Economic Geography; Géza Barta, PhD student at the same department; Ágnes Erőss,
Research Fellow at the HUN-REN RCAES Geographical Institute and co-organiser of the Spotlight
Summer School; and Diana Vallejo Robalino, Urban Anthropologist and PhD (c) at the Doctoral
School of Sociology, ELTE.