The Road to Fenix

Over the course of five years, The Road to Fenix follows the transformation of a historic harbor warehouse in Rotterdam into an art museum about migration: a place filled with stories about what it means to leave, to travel, and to start over. At the heart of the Fenix warehouse in Katendrecht, where millions of migrants once departed and just as many arrived, the latest addition to the Rotterdam skyline is rising: the stainless-steel Tornado. A staircase, viewing platform and work of art in one, designed by Chinese architect Ma Yansong. The construction of the Tornado forms the central thread of the cinematic story: a spiral that unfurls like the film itself. Each turn opens up a new perspective.

The Road to Fenix follows the people building Fenix. Wim Pijbes lays the foundation of Fenix, transforming ideas into reality with vision and determination. Amid dust, steel, and art, director Anne Kremers balances accessibility, depth, and nuance. Hanneke Mantel combs through archives in search of photographs that show the many faces of migration. Abdelkader Benali weaves objects, texts, and testimonies into a story about home, origins, and the future. Works of art by, among others, Beya Gille Gacha, Shilpa Gupta, Raquel van Haver, Hans Holbein the Younger, Willem de Kooning, and Efrat Zehavi appear not as illustrations but as perspectives on departure and return, longing and hope, love, loss, and happiness. Beauty goes hand in hand with friction—about representation, origin, and ownership.

The Road to Fenix is an invitation to move past stories, through spaces, upward along the Tornado, to the rooftop where the city opens up.