Leilani Farha

Choosing hope over despair, Berliners are banding together to get their houses back from big investors. [...] This documentary film follows five Berlin citizens of different backgrounds, countries, and diverse stories. They find themselves among almost two thousand similarly dedicated people to fight together for one cause. While their personal motivations differ, they all believe they can convince Berlin that the only way to make housing affordable again is to drive real estate companies out of their city. The stakes are high, the movement is strong. But with almost nothing in their hands, they have to prevail against an overwhelming opposition of the real estate lobby and politicians willing to sell out the city they call home.

Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. PUSH sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, our increasingly unliveable cities and an escalating crisis that has an effect on us all. This is not gentrification, it’s a different kind of monster.The film follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she’s travelling the globe, trying to understand who’s being pushed out of the city and why. “I believe there’s a huge difference between housing as a commodity and gold as a commodity. Gold is not a human right, housing is,” says Leilani.