Celebrate Mother’s Day With a Hamptons Doc Fest Screening at SAC

Hamptons Doc Fest, in partnership with the Southampton Arts Center, celebrates Mother’s Day this year for the first time. On Saturday, May 10, at 2 p.m. the Doc Fest will screen the documentary “Ada: My Mother the Architect.”

Ada Karmi Melamede is one of the most accomplished and prolific female architects in the world, yet is little known outside of architectural circles or her home country of Israel. Her daughter, Yael Melamede, a filmmaker and former architect, has sought to correct that with her moving 2024 documentary “Ada: My Mother the Architect” now playing at film festivals around the world and at SAC.

Ada Melamede lived for nearly two decades in the United States, raising her three children, teaching at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, working on major New York City projects like a master plan for Con Edison, a study of mixed-use development along the proposed Second Avenue Subway, and a 1978 housing competition on Roosevelt Island.

After being denied tenure, she made the decision to leave her family and move to Israel when she asked to design the new Supreme Court building in Jerusalem. She later shaped other major landmarks such as The Open University, Ben Gurion Airport, and the Israel Institute for Democracy.

Following the screening, both director Yael Melamede and her mother, Ada Melamede, will appear live at the Southampton Arts Center for the Q&A.

“I’m incredibly pleased that we were able to invite Yael and her mother to attend the screening in person and speak afterward about their lives,” said Jacqui Lofaro, founder and executive director of Hamptons Doc Fest. “Ada’s impact on Israeli architecture is profound. But the sacrifice of leaving her life and family behind is at the heart of this film. Every mother and daughter needs to experience this story. And every architect needs to experience it as if it were a master class.”

Tickets are $20 ($15 SAC members) at hamptonsdocfest.com and southamptonartscenter.org. The Southampton Arts Center is at 25 Jobs Lane in Southampton. The AIA will offer two education credits to member architects who attend.