Bêka & Lemoine (Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine) are artists, filmmakers and researchers working at the crossroads of visual arts, non-fiction cinema and architecture. Working together since 2005 they have been experimenting with new narrative and cinematic forms to explore how people experience, perceive, and relate to space from an emotional, social, and cultural standpoint. The duo has been described by the Barbican Center as one of the most important architectural artists working today. In 2016, MoMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York, acquired their entire body of work—16 films at the time—which now forms part of its permanent collection. The acquisition of an artist's complete body of work by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an exceptionally rare honor for a living artist.
Biography Ila Bêka is a trained architect, graduated from the Università Iuav di Venezia and the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville. During his studies, he was mentored by prominent figures such as Aldo Rossi, Manfredo Tafuri, Vittorio Gregotti, Massimo Cacciari, Bernardo Secchi, Ugo La Pietra, Henri Ciriani, and Jacques Lucan. Since 2000, he has directed and produced films and video installations, which have been recognized and awarded at numerous prestigious festivals. His film In Utero was awarded at the Arcipelago Festival (Jameson Award, 2002) and shortlisted for Best Short Film for the Academy Awards (2003). I Have Seen my Mother Dancing in the Clouds has been awarded at Torino Film Festival (Best International Short Film, 2003), while Ventre was awarded at Interfilm Berlin Film Festival (Best Film Award, 2005) and received a Special Mention at Nastri d'Argento (2005). Ila Bêka also won the Premio Troisi for Best Film at MareFestival (2004) for his short film Buongiorno, one of the most awarded short film in history with more than 60 awards and 250 official selections at the most important international short film festivals.
Louise Lemoine studied Art History and Cinema History at the Sorbonne University (Paris 1 and Paris 4), earning a DEA degree under the guidance of Nicole Brenez with a thesis titled “L’esthétique du fragment ou la pensée du doute” (“The Aesthetics of Fragmentation or the Philosophy of Doubt”).
In 2005, they co-founded the independent film company Bêka & Partners. Their first collaborative feature, Koolhaas Houselife, released in 2008, follows housekeeper Guadalupe Acedo as she performs her daily tasks within Rem Koolhaas's iconic "Maison à Bordeaux". The film received widespread critical acclaim, achieving "cult status" for its unique portrayal of the house not as a static masterpiece but as a living, imperfect structure. By revealing its challenges — leaks, maintenance, and practical shortcomings — the film has gone “far beyond simple architecture… it has the wit and the style to work as an arthouse cinema release”.
Koolhaas Houselife became the inaugural installment of the Living Architectures series, which includes five films by Bêka & Lemoine: Koolhaas Houselife, the Inside Piano trilogy, Pomerol, Herzog & de Meuron, Xmas Meier, and Gehry’s Vertigo. Their filmography later expanded to examine more complex residential environments, including Auguste Perret’s Rue Franklin Apartments (25 Bis), the Barbican Estate (Barbicania), and Bjarke Ingels Group's 8 House (The Infinite Happiness). They also explored urban public spaces in films like 24 heures sur place—a reflection on Place de la République in Paris — and Voyage autour de la Lune. Further investigations into personal and domestic spaces led to works like Selling Dreams, Moriyama-San, and Butohouse. With the trilogy of films Tokyo Ride, Big Ears Listen with Feet, and The Sense of Tuning, they captured the essence of Tokyo, Bangkok, and Mumbai through the intimate and personal perspectives of architects who live and work in these cities: Ryue Nishizawa, Boonserm Premthada, and Bijoy Jain. One of their last films, Rehab (from rehab), was filmed in the REHAB clinic in Basel, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. The film is a sensitive and personal reflection that questions the way hospitals think spaces of care for the most vulnerable ones.
Hailed by The New York Times as "cult figures in the European architecture world", Bêka & Lemoine's work "imaginatively, and often hilariously, explores the daily life of contemporary architecture as it is inhabited and experienced".
Influence Bêka & Lemoine have significantly influenced both architecture and cinema, redefining how we perceive space, in architecture, cities, and the built environment as a whole. Their work shifts the focus from traditional, object-oriented representations of architecture to the human experiences that unfold within designed environments. By capturing the everyday interactions, emotions, and social dynamics that occur within buildings, they explore how spaces shape, and are shaped by, human life. This approach has changed how we understand the impact of design on daily experiences, highlighting the intimate relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit.
Their contributions extend beyond architecture into the field of cinema, where they have pioneered a new genre of filmmaking. By blending documentary and narrative techniques, Bêka & Lemoine have created a unique cinematic style that emphasizes the lived experience of architecture, making it more relatable and accessible. Their films challenge conventional approaches to architectural representation, offering a more inclusive, human-centered perspective. This shift has not only enriched architectural discourse but also expanded the role of cinema in documenting and interpreting the built environment. Through their work, they have contributed to a broader understanding of how film can be used to explore the intersection of space, society, and human experience, offering new insights for both architecture and cinema.
Critical Engagement Bêka & Lemoine’s work has been widely noted for its critical engagement with architecture as a subtle instrument of social control. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, and Beatriz Colomina, their films investigate how built environments structure behavior, shape routines, and influence social dynamics. Through observational and often humorous portrayals in films such as Koolhaas Houselife, The Infinite Happiness, Barbicania and the Homo Urbanus series, they reveal how people adapt to, resist, or reinterpret architectural intentions. Their cinematic approach foregrounds the frictions between design and daily life, emphasizing how architecture governs not only movement and visibility, but also emotion, labor, and social interaction.
Perfect Days and Moriyama-San The 2023 film Perfect Days by Wim Wenders has drawn significant attention for its striking similarities to the 2017 documentary Moriyama-San by Bêka & Lemoine, sparking discussions about the extent of these resemblances. Luca Galofaro, writing for ArchDaily, highlighted the uncanny alignment between the two films, particularly in their portrayal of solitary protagonists—Hirayama in Perfect Days and Moriyama in Moriyama-San. Both characters are depicted as introspective individuals navigating their urban environments through meditative routines, such as observing the world through windows, lying on the floor to read, and performing repetitive, almost ritualistic actions that emphasize their deep connection with their architectural surroundings.
The visual language of the two films amplifies these parallels, with stills from Perfect Days and Moriyama-San revealing an extraordinary resemblance in composition, mood, and the protagonists' gestures. The degree of similarity in these visuals has led to questions about the originality of Perfect Days, given that Moriyama-San predates it by six years. Jack Murphy, in The Architect’s Newspaper, further underscored how Perfect Days seems to echo the contemplative atmosphere and thematic focus of Moriyama-San. He noted how both films delve into the rhythms of daily life and the intimate relationship between human identity and architectural space, but the parallels in execution and aesthetic between the two are difficult to overlook. These similarities blur the lines between inspiration and coincidence, creating a compelling yet controversial dialogue about the artistic interplay between the two films.
Festivals and Screenings Bêka & Lemoine’s work has been featured at numerous prominent international film festivals, including CPH:DOX (Copenhagen, Denmark), Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Ji.hlava, Czech Republic), Dok Leipzig (Leipzig, Germany), Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival (Tel Aviv, Israel), Chicago International Film Festival (Chicago, Illinois), BAFICI - Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (Buenos Aires, Argentina), BIFF – Bergen International Film Festival (Bergen, Norway), Yalta International Film Festival (Jalta), Le FIFA - Festival International du Film sur l'Art (Montréal, Canada), CAFx – Copenhagen Architecture Forum (Copenhagen, Denmark), AFFR - Architecture Film Festival (Rotterdam, Netherlands), MDFF - Milano Design Film Festival (Milano, Italy), SMAFF – St. Moritz Art Film Festival (St. Moritz, Switzerland), SIAFF – Seoul International Architecture Film Festival (Seoul, Korea), London Architecture Film Festival (London, UK), ADFF - Architecture & Design Film Festival (USA), Archfilmlund (Sweden), Brussels Art Film Festival (Brussels, Belgium).
Among the cultural institutions that presented their work: MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts (Rome, Italy), The Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK), Barbican Center (London, UK), Bozar - Centre for Fine Arts (Brussels, Belgium), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Copenhagen, Denmark), Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai, China), MOMAK - National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto, Japan), MET – The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands), NAI - Netherlands Architecture Institute (Rotterdam, Netherlands), CCA - Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal, Canada), Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia (Venice, Italy).
Filmography
Mundo Frágil , 2026 The world in a Square, 2026 Vija, 2025 Esperando Soy, 2025 Transmutation, 2025 Spatial Disobedience, 2025 Softly Brutal, 2024 The Sense of Tuning, 2023 Rehab From Rehab, 2023 Big Ears Listen With Feet, 2022 Oslavia, The Cave of the Past Future, 2021 Tokyo Ride, 2020 ButoHouse, 2019 Homo Urbanus (2017 - ongoing project of 14 films) Moriyama-San, 2017 Selling Dreams, 2016 Voyage autour de la Lune, 2015 Spiriti, 2015 The Infinite Happiness, 2015 Barbicania, 2014 24 heures sur place, 2014 La Maddalena, 2014 L’Expérience du vide, 2014 25 bis, 2014 Living Architectures, 2013 Pomerol, Herzog & de Meuron, 2011 Xmas Meier, 2010 Gehry’s Vertigo, 2010 Inside Piano (3 films), 2010 The Little Beaubourg, 2010 The Submarine, 2010 The Power of Silence, 2010 Koolhaas Houselife, 2008
Exhibitions
Homo Urbanus. A City-matographic Odyssey