Big Ears Listen with Feet (2022, 93′)

Acclaimed artist-filmmakers Bêka & Lemoine take us to Bangkok on a one-day hectic journey through the chaotic concrete jungle of the South-Asian megacity. Led by the moving personal story of Boonserm Premthada, one of today’s most important Thai architects, the film unfolds through a free wander, punctuated by stunning encounters, events, and places which have contributed to shaping Premthada’s unique identity and sensibility. Deaf from birth, the architect evokes how his disability led him to develop an alternative way of listening using his whole body as a resonance chamber of sound vibrations. Despite their large ears, elephants also perceive sound mostly through their feet. Learning from elephants, Boonserm has developed an architecture of the senses where sound vibrations become the voice of space. Walking through the dark streets of the slum where he grew up, flying to remote rural communities living in symbiosis with elephants, and observing old ladies’ devotion towards the Buddhist monks of their village, the film reveals, through impressive sequences, the architect’s active commitment to working with people for whom architecture can have a strong social impact. When a road movie merges with a film diary, here comes the one-of-a-kind style of Bêka & Lemoine’s performative cinema.

Presented by Pedro Baía

Pedro Baía is an architect, editor, professor, and researcher. He founded and has directed Circo de Ideias (circodeideias.pt) since 2008. He is a member of the editorial board of Jornal Arquitectos (2022–2025) and has been part of the board of AICA Portugal since 2021. He teaches as a guest assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa and at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, where, since 2024, he has been an integrated researcher at the Center for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism.