The Proposal at The Metrograph

The Proposal screens at The Metrograph in New York on December 14 and 18, featuring an Introduction and Question and Answer with Jill Magid.

Following the death of the visionary, Pritzker Prize-winning Mexican architect and engineer Luis Barragán in 1988, the archives of his work were consigned to an archive near Basel, Switzerland, almost entirely hidden from public view. Confronting the barriers to accessing Barragán’s work when planning an exhibition on him, Magid began a cagey epistolary relationship with archive controller Federica Zanco which would become the basis for The Proposal, documenting the filmmaker’s long struggle to prise open the archival vaults, culminating in an ingenious and wholly unexpected scheme. “Captivatingly wily… [Details] at once an art project and a rescue mission, a love triangle and an elaborate, outlandish bargain, the movie has a surface serenity that belies its fuming emotions.” —The New York Times