A cooperation of with Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Potsdam (HFF).

The idea

Aareal Bank AG, headquartered in Wiesbaden, is one of the leading international specialists in commercial property financing. Our financing gives rise to office complexes, hotels, logistics centres and shopping malls. These newly-created business and living spaces now have life breathed into them on film, the motto of which is "Living Deals". The films that are being made will be shown gradually at the 19 international Aareal Bank Group locations as permanent media artworks and at the same time as a cultural element spanning the globe and the Group. The first film project of the long-term series has been implemented in cooperation with the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Potsdam (HFF)..

The challenge

In October 2007 HFF students were called upon to take part in a creative competition to develop storyboards for showing the Rondo I office tower. Rondo I is the new architectural symbol of Warsaw. That was the challenge for the students. There was an independent jury consisting of Nan Hoover (media artist, Berlin/Amsterdam), Charlotte Pöchhacker (curator, Graz), Christoph Janetzko (filmmaker, Berlin), Lawrence Wallen (media artist/scenographer/architect, Zurich). They assessed the submissions and chose two concepts for implementation in February 2008. Criteria for assessing the storyboards were the creative approach of the filmic realisation; demonstration of new perspectives on the building and its architecture and a solid implementation concept within the given budget. Aareal Bank is providing a total of EUR 12,000 for the realisation of the films selected.

The winner (extract from the storyboard)

Barbara Falkner, „Rondo I - Inside out“: the viewer is invited to go on a journey in and up through the building over the roofs of Warsaw. On the virtual way up, one feels the height and subtle particularities of the architecture too. There are aesthetic pictures on view, the camera's eye seeks out design detail and the unusual perspective. The pictures develop in a slow flow from outside to inside, and from below to on high, until the highest lookout from the building is reached. Here we see external views of the skyline and the viewer discovers how particular the site of the property is. Then the film restarts...