Film Screening and Director Talk: Skin of Glass by Denise Zmekhol
The Center for Architecture + Design is pleased to kick off the 2025 CA+D Film Series with a special presentation of SKIN OF GLASS on Wednesday, May 7. Following the screening, join us for a lively discussion and Q&A to learn more about the powerful story behind this deeply personal and politically resonant film. Wine and an assortment of movie theater concessions will be provided to enjoy during the screening.
A poetic and personal cinematic meditation on displacement and loss, SKIN OF GLASS follows filmmaker Denise Zmekhol’s journey after discovering that her late father’s most celebrated work as an architect, a modernist glass skyscraper in the heart of São Paulo, Brazil, has become occupied by hundreds of unhoused families.
In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Zmekhol connects with the residents of the building seeking to understand how São Paulo’s most vulnerable found shelter within a modernist icon from Brazil’s golden age of architecture. Delicately interweaving the personal and political, SKIN OF GLASS is a profound and moving reflection of the country’s own evolution during eras of darkness, transformation, and rebirth.
Watch the SKIN OF GLASS trailer.
Organized in collaboration with Richard Neill, Adventure Pictures, and Karen Curtiss, AIA, CA+D Vice Chair.
Agenda
| May 7 | |
| 6:00 PM - 6:25 PM | Opening Reception |
| 6:25 PM - 6:30 PM | Introduction and Welcome by Consul General of Brazil |
| 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM | Film Screening |
| 8:00 PM - 8:15 PM |
Film Discussion
Conversation with Director Denise Zmekhol and CA+D Board Member Karen Curtiss, AIA |
| 8:15 PM - 8:30 PM | Audience Q&A |
| 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM | Closing Reception |
Denise Zmekhol, Filmmaker, Skin of Glass (2023)
DENISE ZMEKHOL is a Brazilian-American award-winning producer and director of documentary films and media projects that span the globe. Zmekhol’s work addresses cultural preservation and environmental stewardship and how these issues intersect with technological innovation. Her documentary films, commercials and innovative projects have been recognized for their elegant visual style and deft storytelling.
Karen Curtiss, AIA, Red Dot Studio
Born and raised on the East Coast of the United States, Karen Curtiss studied in Scotland, and then lived in Hungary, before settling in San Francisco. Her cultural explorations, intellectual pursuits and participation in competitive fencing eventually led her to architecture and inform her unconventional approach to the practice.
Since founding Red Dot Studio in 2005, Karen has championed a design thinking and engagement based on a belief in the profoundness of the prosaic in elevating the human experience and creating spaces imbued with the feeling of good design.