(2018) THE PROPOSAL

A film by Jill Magid

Visit Oscilloscope Laboratories for trailer, screenings, and to stream online.

** Best Documentary 2021, Architecture Film Fest London

** Best International Film 2020, Documentary Film Festival On Contemporary Art, Barcelona

** Special Jury Prize 2019, FILAF, The International Art Book and Film Festival, Perpignan

** Shortlist for 2019 Best Feature, The International Documentary Association (IDA)

** Public Prize, 2019 Architecture Film Festival Lisbon

** Festival Grand Prix, 2019 Millenium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, Poland

** Chopin's Nose Award, 2019 Millenium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, Poland

** Honorable Mention - New Talent Award, 2018 Sheffield Doc Fest

** Honorable Mention - Emerging International Filmmaker Award, 2018 Hot Docs Film Festival

Known as “the artist among architects”, Luis Barragán is among the world’s most celebrated architects of the 20th century. Upon his death in 1988, much of his work was locked away in a Swiss bunker, hidden from the world’s view. In an attempt to resurrect Barragán's life and art, boundary redefining artist Jill Magid creates a daring proposition that becomes a fascinating artwork in itself - a high-wire act of negotiation that explores how far an artist will go to democratize access to art.

IN THEATERS

** New York Theater Premiere: IFC Center, opening May 24th

** Los Angeles, CA: Laemmle Monica Film Center, May 31

** Pasadena, CA: Playhouse 7, May 31

** Hartford, CT: Real Art Ways, June 7

** Irvine, CA: Westpark, June 7

** Chicago, IL: Gene Siskel Film Center, June 14

** Santa Fe, NM: CCA, June 14

** Columbus, OH: Gateway Film Center, June 14

** Miami, FL: O Cinema, June 15

** Phoenix, AZ, Valley Art, June 21

** Ashland, OR, Varsity, June 21

** Portland, OR: Living Room Theaters, June 21

** Louisville, KY: Speed Museum, June 21

** Washington, DC: West End, June 21

** Larkspur, CA: The Lark, June 21

** Hudson, NY: Time and Space, June 27

** Philly, PA: Ritz Bourse, June 27

** New York, NY: New Plaza Cinema, July 5

** Lincoln, NE: Mary Riepma Ross Center, July 5

** San Diego, CA: Media Arts Center / Digital Gym, July 5

** Atlanta, GA: The Plaza / Digital Gym, July 5

** Portland, ME: Portland Museum, July 12

** Omaha, NE: Film Streams, July 19

** Seattle, WA: Northwest Film Forum, August 18

** Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, September 10

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

As a visual artist and writer, I use my work to create new perspectives to long-established structures of power in society.

During the past eighteen years, I’ve trained as a spy, a police officer, and as a war journalist. Gaining access to power systems takes research, trust, and a series of unorthodox requests, requiring constant negotiation. From the inside, I engage these systems in personal dialogue. From there, I’m able to raise questions and concerns on how we live in relation to them.

The Proposal is my first feature film and the last chapter of a larger project I began in 2013 called The Barragán Archives. The project explores the contested legacy of Luis Barragán, Mexico’s most famous architect, and how his legacy is affected by the fact that a private corporation, Vitra, owns his archives and controls the rights in his name and work. For more than twenty years, this corporation has made his work largely inaccessible to the public. The film questions whether a single actor should be exclusively in control of how the world can engage with Barragán’s work.

As the film’s protagonist, I am aware that I am entering a story that has not previously involved me, and that my presence could affect its future, or a retelling of the past. I believe that it is crucial to discuss how artistic legacy is constructed, shaped, and manipulated. Does allowing the public to engage with an artwork in various ways and from multiple perspectives threaten its integrity, or make it more integral to society over time?

Almost as an invitation for image-making, Barragán was known to adjust a buildings’ design so that it would photograph better. With this film, I wanted to capture the overwhelming beauty of his work while simultaneously questioning the legal challenges one faces to do so. The film is in itself a proposal: A way to elicit dialogue about access to legacy and its proprietary nature, and not simply if the proposal will be accepted.

Intertwined with these pressing social questions is a quieter rumination on mortality and the relationship of the artist’s body to his or her body of work. Mortality permeates, in the aging of the architecture and within the intimate presence of three generations of the Barragán family. I wanted to present legacy as something potentially alive, and full of possibility. Transforming ashes into a diamond is an expression of possibility.

My work has long provoked questions about access to power and power relations, in a similar realm as the work of Adrian Piper, Tanya Bruguera, Trevor Paglen and The Yes Men.

MAIN CREDITS

Producers: Jarred Alterman, Charlotte Cook, Laura Coxson

Executive Producer: Laura Poitras

Editor: Hannah Buck

DP: Jarred Alterman

Original Music: T. Griffin

Associate Producer: Pamela Echeverria

Consulting Editor: Nels Bangerter

PAST FESTIVALS

** 2018 Tribeca Film Festival **

** 2018 Hot Docs Film Festival **

** Sheffield Doc Fest **