Synopsis: For the past two decades Didi Contractor has been passionately implementing her architectural visions in North West of India, the Kangra Valley, at the foothills of the Himalayas combining rural traditions with modern requirements. This poetic documentary introduces us to her creations - houses built from clay, bamboo, slate and river stone, constructed in tribute to their natural surroundings. At the age of 86, Didi Contractor pursues her vision working day and night - dreaming her designs then designing her dreams. She sketches roughly, then proportions with pinpoint accuracy, the blueprints for economically and ecologically sustainability.

ParaDocma, of PARAdigm, of DOCumentary and DOgMA, is an initiative that brings together several groups and local organisations, an Itinerant Cinema Series that will journey through the city of Coimbra with the aim of promoting the “study of the home”, in this case, producing dialogue on pressing ecological issues in various spaces of the city of Coimbra. It is a travelling event because it intends to disseminate the associative spaces and the public spaces of the city to the population and, thus, to know the local material and immaterial resources.

This is the seventh session of the second edition of ParaDocma, an initiative jointly organised by Casa da Esquina, the Coimbra em Transição (CeT) Association, Cine Eco Seia and the Ecology and Society Workshop of the Centre for Social Studies/UC with other local organisations. We have the privilege of having Cine Eco Seia, the main environmental film festival in Portugal, as a partner and having free screening rights to award-winning films in Coimbra. In this edition, the sessions will be mainly at Casa da Esquina and between January and June 2019 there will be at least two sessions in two other venues, with at least one outdoor session.