AIR and Keilecafe are organising an outdoor film evening in the M4H area, as part of the Rotterdam Architecture Month. A selection of inspiring films about circular systems in construction and the hidden processes behind material reuse and recovery.

For the Rotterdam Architecture Month 2026, AIR and Studio ACTE launched the Test Site Materialenwerf in the M4H area: a space where visitors can explore the collection, processing and reuse of reclaimed materials. An experimental space that makes visible what a circular city can look like in practice.

This movie night connects directly to that subject. The programme consists of several short films, and inbetween screenings, moderator and filmmaker Karim Ouri will be host a conversation with makers, architects and others involved. Before the programme starts, food and drinks will be available at Keilecafe.

Reserve your free spot via this link.

Film selection

Artifacts of Accumulation (19 min)

A film by Carolien Schippers, Locument, and Arcam

‘Artefacts of Accumulation’ turns our gaze to the hidden architectures of waste. Through quiet, rigorous observation the film follows discarded matter across six regional processing sites around Amsterdam, revealing how sorting, transport and treatment shape both material flows and landscapes.

Shifting from granular detail to vast industrial terrains, Carolien Schippers exposes the physical and spatial infrastructures that underlie modern waste systems and the values and contradictions those infrastructures conceal. An invitation to rethink the city’s metabolism, the film asks what “circularity” produces and who bears its consequences.

Dear Home of Scars: Ibrahim Mahama’s Art and Community (20 min)

A film by Marina Meijer (Ammodo Docs)

‘Dear Home of Scars’ follows Ibrahim Mahama’s return to Tamale, Northern Ghana, where his Red Clay Studio has become a hub of cultural life and collective work. The film documents Mahama’s construction of a charged new installation: a reconstructed stretch of colonial rail track and repurposed railcars that stand as physical testimonies to a history of extraction.

Through intimate scenes of making and dialogue with local residents, the project reveals how art can generate energy, agency and communal reflection. Mahama’s practice transforming detritus into inhabited, public structures – reframes material remnants as sites of memory, education and possibility, insisting that historical infrastructures be read not only as objects but as living social relations.

The film is a compact meditation on memory, labor and the political life of materials.

Documentation of the Test Site Materialenwerf by Paul Swagerman

For the Rotterdam Architecture Month in 2026, AIR and Studio ACTE open a Test Site Materialenwerf in M4H: an experimental platform where the life cycles of reclaimed materials are made tangible. The pavilion invites visitors to trace collection, processing and reuse. Revealing the hidden trajectories of materials that have already lived one life and are on their way to another.

Dutch filmmaker Paul Swagerman documents Studio ACTE’s design and sourcing process, capturing both moments of creative reuse and the practical obstacles of working toward circular construction. The result is a portrait of what a circular city might look like in practice and the logistical, ethical and material questions that must be resolved to get there.