A utopia with its own rules — but whose freedom are we really watching?
Past and present life in the anarchistic "free city" of Christiania, in Copenhagen, Denmark. In Sandra of the Tuliphouse or How to Live in Free State, Christiania is approached at face-value, as a self-described laboratory of freedom, an environment that provides an almost unparalleled opportunity to unravel a very particular history of markedly contrasting power relations and vivid social forces. Borrowing from the usually disparate practices of cultural geography and fictional narrative, the project is constructed as a visual, spatial, and aural investigation of the site. The situation at Christiania in 2001 is compared with its distant past as a military base, its more recent utopian regeneration, and its possible future.
Direction
Buckingham and Koester blur documentary into spatial fiction.
Cinematography
Christiania as archaeological site — layers of occupation visible.
Editing
Past and present collapse; time becomes geography.
Director
Matthew Buckingham
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Christiania was established in 1971 when squatters occupied abandoned military barracks; by 2001, it was fighting government 'normalization' plans threatening its existence.
Buckingham and Koester were visual artists, not traditional documentarians — this 'film' premiered as a gallery installation before theatrical release, explaining its spatial, durational logic.
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