"The Academy museum will take the visitor through the back door of cinema, behind the curtain, and into moviemaking magic, " said 74-year-old Piano, whose buildings have frequently divided opinion.

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Next-door neighbours were looking down at us through the gap from their tiny dwellings just feet away, as we climbed the stairs to her bedroom - a curtain serving as a door because the lower half was missing.

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Next door to the museum, visitors pass through a curtain of bullet shells to enter a guerrilla camp, re-constructed to provide a taste of daily life during the conflict.

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