Unforgettable Montevideo

(Montevideo inolvidable)
Alfredo Ghierra | Documentary

2025 | 82 minutes | Uruguay

Artist Alfredo Ghierra explores Montevideo’s architectural heritage, asking how a city can preserve its memory while embracing change and modernity.

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Synopsis

What does a city lose when its historic buildings disappear? In Unforgettable Montevideo, visual artist Alfredo Ghierra explores Montevideo’s architectural heritage as a reflection of personal and collective memory. Through interviews with architects, urbanists, historians, artists, politicians, and other voices, Ghierra examines what the city has inherited, what it is losing, and what it might still choose to preserve.

The film documents the transformation and demolition of emblematic buildings while asking how a living city can reconcile architectural preservation with growth and modernization. Rather than proposing that Montevideo become a “museum city,” Ghierra looks for a balance between its built heritage and the new city taking shape around it.

The investigation extends beyond Uruguay to São Paulo, Venice, and Sofia—cities with which Ghierra has personal connections and that face their own tensions between urban development, architectural heritage, and collective memory. Moving between these cities and Montevideo, the film considers architecture not simply as a collection of buildings, but as a record of the people, histories, craftsmanship, and ways of life embedded in the urban landscape.

At the heart of Unforgettable Montevideo is a question about inheritance: what does it mean to receive a city from previous generations, and what responsibility comes with deciding what remains for the next? The result is both a portrait of Montevideo and a broader reflection on how cities change, remember, and define themselves.

Reviews

“More than stating truths, Unforgettable Montevideo seeks to ask questions. It raises unresolved questions and opens the door to discussion. Its director, Alfredo Ghierra, gives them center stage.” — Catalina Zabala, LatidoBEAT.

“Montevideo Inolvidable is a film of love and concern for Montevideo.” — El Observador.

“A film that invites us to reflect on the city and its built memory.” — Fundación Itaú.

“The spaces discussed in the film are the setting for the lives of ordinary Montevideans; they are not merely buildings that contain their own particular stories, but are also part of what makes us who we are.” — María Belén Sanchís, Revista FILM.

"An audiovisual work charged with emotion and nostalgia, but also a contribution to reflection, challenging not only those currently in government but the entire community of Montevideans, who should love the city in which they live beyond merely artistic or aesthetic criteria.” — Hugo Acevedo, La Onda Digital.

“The film also highlights real estate speculation and the lack of sound public policies—factors that, it argues, have accelerated the transformation and, in many cases, the deterioration of Montevideo’s urban landscape.” – VTV Uruguay

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Keywords
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Clips
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Festivals

Film a Architektura International Film and Architecture Festival; INCUNA FEST International Film Festival on Industrial Heritage and Cultural Landscapes; DETOUR Festival of New Cinema Uruguay - First Prize Ronald Meltzer Award; Atlantidoc; Modernism Week Palm Springs

DIRECTOR: Alfredo Ghierra

NATIONALITY: Uruguay

YEAR: 2025

GENRE: Documentary

LANGUAGE: Spanish; Portuguese; Italian; Other languages

COLOR / B&W: Color

GRADE LEVEL: Middle School, High School, College, Adult

SUBTITLE/CC: AVAILABLE

AUDIO DESCRIPTION: NOT AVAILABLE

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