In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."
The film describes the microcosmos of the small village Wacken and shows the clash of the cultures, before and during the biggest heavy metal festival in Europe.
This short documentary features a portrait of Ottawa in the mid-20th century, as the nascent Canadian capital grew with force but without direction. Street congestion, air pollution, and rail traffic were all the negative results of a city that had grown without being properly planned. French architect and urban designer Jacques Gréber stepped in to create a far-sighted plan for the future development of Ottawa. With tracks moved, factories relocated, and neighbourhoods redesigned as separate communities, Ottawa became the capital city of true beauty and dignity we know today.
An exploration of a new paradigm of health, science, and medicine, based on the interconnections between us and nature.
Farming practices in America's heartland, including excess fertilizers and poor soil conservation, have wrought unintended yet severe consequences on the Mississippi River. Fortunately, farmers, scientists, and citizens are pursuing more sustainable land-use practices that meet ambitious food production goals while ensuring the long-term health of precious natural resources.
Caracas has been changing since the nineteenth century this is a story that tries to explain why the Venezuelan capital is complex, chaotic and fertile. In light of these new evidences, community experiments, social awareness and organization of people, seem to be the necessary ingredients to rescue a metropolis that is not yet completely lost.
The philanthropic foundation set up by US billionaire Bill Gates quietly co-finances experiments with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in several African countries. In the age of philanthropic capitalism, billionaires "save the world" and make money in the process. But who is helped the most, ordinary Africans or the food industry?
Devastation of a Welsh-speaking community: Capel Celyn village and farms of the Tryweryn Valley disappear beneath the waters of a reservoir so Liverpool’s thirst may be slaked.
The drought in the American West is predicted to be the worst in 1,000 years. Join five Academy Award-winning filmmakers as they explore the environmental crisis of our time and how to fix it before it's too late.
Is your hedge thin and straggly? Don't worry, help is at hand.
Agriculture and its perspective in modern times. The change from farmers to energy supplier raise questions. Are we doing the right thing?
The people, the scenery and the industrial traditions of the Stroud valley and the growth of the woollen industry.
The cultivation of flax, long and complicated, requires constant precautions and care. This document describes the different stages of this culture, from tillage and fertilization of the soil to uprooting, retting, braying, stacking, retting and, finally, shipping to the factory.
In this documentary, Marie-Claire Rubinstein reveals to us, through the testimonies of the inhabitants who live there, the architectural achievements of the French urban planner Fernand Pouillon in Algiers. In particular the vast complexes of hundreds of social housing units, including the most famous Diar E Saâd (1953), Diar El Mahçoul (1954) and Climat de France (1957). The historical context, during the war of independence is related by the historian Benjamin Stora and Nadir Boumaza. This documentary also evokes the personality of Fernand Pouillon in a post-colonial context.
Γάζωρος Σερρών
A look at the destruction that follows the breaking of long-neglected dikes and the measures being taken to prevent future problems.
Jaime Lerner - Uma História de Sonhos
A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.
The story of Dr. George Washington Carver (1864-1943), black educator and horticulturist. He is perhaps most well known for developing over 140 products from all parts of the peanut plant, including the shells and husks. He also developed products based on sweet potatoes and soybeans, and developed a cotton hybrid that was named after him.
A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river's edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China.