In the valley of Hadhramaut, south Yemen, are buildings of exquisite design. They soar ten to twelve stories above the arid, rocky desert, a vernacular architecture of intricate filigree and glazed coloration, but remarkable even more for their principal building material, thin bricks of mud. You can tell that director Borelli adores these charmed structures as her camera seeks out each ornamental flourish, each carved spangle and polished cranny. For all their fantastical invention, the dwellings of Wadi Hadhramaut, and most famously the city of Shibam, directly express a tradition of craft and form linking Yemenite culture to the land. Master and apprentice alike testify to the uncanny skills that elevate these improbable abodes. The airy Architecture of Mud examines the age-old practice that has kept these buildings aloft, but endangered now that something more concrete looms on the horizon.-Steve Seid