Tingog sa Carbohanon

Destroyed in a dramatic and highly-publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure amongst architects, politicians and policy makers. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which they resided, while tracing the personal and poignant narratives of several of the project's residents. In the post-War years, the American city changed in ways that made it unrecognizable from a generation earlier, privileging some and leaving others in its wake. The next time the city changes, remember Pruitt-Igoe.

Stadens själ

A journey through the fantastic and mysterious Barcelona that the Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964-2020) loved so much, the city of myth and legend, the city that was before it became one of the main European tourist destinations.

In the Zeeland coastal village of Cadzand, tourism provides year-round employment and vibrancy. At the same time, permanent residents are disappearing, and housing is becoming unaffordable. Clubs are shrinking, amenities are under pressure, and the fire department is facing a shortage of volunteers. The coast is being filled with expensive apartment complexes for tourists, while young people are struggling to find affordable housing. Economic growth is clashing with social cohesion and nature. How do residents of a Zeeland coastal village combat the financial pressures when their village is overrun by tourists and white facades with red roofs dominate nature reserves?

Amidst the ivy-draped remnants of once-notorious public housing projects, FOR THOSE THAT LIVED THERE weaves a visual tapestry, navigating the poignant impacts of gentrification, the displacement of Black legacies, and the emergent migrant narratives. Against Chicago's ever-evolving skyline, this evocative exploration immerses audiences into the soul of a neighborhood transformed.

The life of filmmaker Matthijs Vuijk's grandmother Coby is turned upside down when the community church she has attended all her life in the small Zeelandic village Kortgene is forced to close. Fortunately, preacher and entrepreneur Ruben van Zwieten, buys the church and aims to transform the faith community to be ready for the 21st Century, by attracting young people, but with all bills paid. Church of Glass explores the confrontation between the small aging faith community of Kortgene and the slick neo-theological entrepreneurship of Ruben van Zwieten transformational vision.

A home video camera observes everyday life from a balcony in Ciutat Vella. Over time, that same point of view reveals the shift from a lived-in neighborhood to a staged city, shaped by tourism, speculation, and surveillance.

A short documentary shot in November 2021 in Berkeley. It reflects on the ethos of privatization in American culture and how public spaces are being built to exclude people through cruel architecture. The context used is the gentrification circle around the University of California Berkeley intended to build student housing. An eye-opening journey that explores structures and elements you would never have stopped at.

In the dilapidated industrial buildings in Upper Ladadika or in the wider area of Valaoritou in Thessaloniki, bands and creators flourished for over four decades. Rooftops, music studios and rehearsal halls with the decibels turned up created the space and time for a continuous explosion of cultural action, personal and collective expression. Through the eyes of the musicians and individuals who continue to shape the city's underground music scene, we see how all this creative expression is increasingly threatened by the ongoing process of displacement due to gentrification. We discuss Thessaloniki, music, the future and the resistance that can be born.

Artists, urban planners and the city of Berlin trying to transform a former GDR ruin into a place for new visions and concepts of city - a place where everything is different than before?

Moulins, du gauche au droit

Devin Boss is on a quest. And he wants you to join him as he explores this simple question: Where We Goin? A millennial Black filmmaker and artist raised in the heart of the whitest city in America, Portland, OR, Boss ventures out to uncover the deeper truths that have shaped not just his city — but his very identity. Boss invites us all along for the ride as he explores the work of Black creatives, cultural stewards and changemakers - past and present - snatching the narratives back, about community resilience and innovation as he examines his roots, to dream of what’s next for him, and all the future ancestors.

Ser Fronterizo: Crónicas de las Asimetrías Globales

The film explores the destruction of a unique train station in Zurich and the construction of the new prison and police centre in its place. From the perspective of the filmmaker’s window, and with testimony from prisoners awaiting deportation, the film probes how we deal with the extinction of history and its replacement with total security.

Jose Rivera is a lifelong resident of Spanish Harlem (El Barrio) but is afraid that gentrification will force him out. James Garcia has just bought an apartment across the street from public housing and wonders why locals resist his moving into the neighborhood. James Barrow worries that a construction project in an empty lot behind his building will threaten his apartment. Oscar Dominguez and Movement for Justice in El Barrio protests against gentrification. A town hall meeting pits community members against a City Councilwoman who supports a massive development project in East Harlem.

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."

With its fluid arrangement of black and white scenes paired with an immersive soundscape, Je me souviens d’un temps où personne ne joggait dans ce quartier is a celebration of the many faces of Park Extension. The film provides a glimpse inside a festive cultural gathering; the workshop of a meticulous artisan; and an alley where a young cyclist is learning to ride. With her restrained approach, the filmmaker hints little by little at a seemingly inevitable transformation, while the relentless onset of gentrification threatens the social fabric of a neighbourhood. After a critically acclaimed detour into audio documentary, Jenny Cartwright returns to the evocative force of images to evoke a rich and diverse community.

Making Dust is an essay film, a portrait of the demolition of Ireland's second largest Catholic Church, the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas West, Dublin. Understanding this moment as a 'rupture', the film maps an essay by architectural historian Ellen Rowley on to documentation of the building's dismantling. Featuring oral interviews recorded at the site of the demolition and in a nearby hairdressers, the film invites viewers to pause and reflect on this ending alongside the community of the building. The film is informed by Ultimology, and invites its audience to think about the life cycles of buildings and materials, how we mourn, what is sacred, how we gather, what we value and issues of sustainability in architecture.

A love letter to a place that will forever be home, a visual ode, and a farewell to a neighborhood that is rapidly changing due to the forces of gentrification and Miami’s housing crisis.

Wem gehört die Stadt - Bürger in Bewegung