Milano Design Film Festival to screen Vertical Slum by Irene Sosa

Vertical Slum is a 50-minute video documentary by Irene Sosa that explores the way architecture reflects ideologies. To do so the she used the Confinanzas Tower, also known as the Torre David, in Caracas, Venezuela as a case study of the huge social, economic and political changes of the past three decades of Venezuelan history. The building reflects the transformation from the extreme free market policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund in 1989 to the so-called socialism of the XXI century of the Hugo Chavez government.

The building of the tower was conceived and begun during the economic boom of the early 90’s but it was left only 60% finished when the financial crisis hit in 1994 and the structure was abandoned for a number of years. In 2008 the Confinanzas Tower was given a new life when it was transformed by housing-hungry and low-income families who turned the structure into their own highly organized community. Vertical Slum documents the history of the last 30 some years through the building from its early planning till its transformation into a vibrant social project and its dismantling and new abandonment. In the early months of 2015, when the documentary was shot, the government moved the more than 5000 inhabitants out and once again left the tower empty.

Irene Sosa began working in film in 1982 and since then has been making documentaries. She has also worked as camera-person and editor in film and video, and collaborated with other artists in many multimedia installations and dance performances.