A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
An ancestral house builds itself, comes to life, and shows us its story spanning one hundred fifty years. Through the ages, it allows us to perceive the passage of time.
The baker, the pie-maker and the diminished long-term community of Hoxton Street face gentrification in this compelling portrait of a rapidly changing London.
“El apagón: Aquí vive gente” is a 23-minute film that explores the socio-economic challenges in Puerto Rico, focusing on the effects of power outages and gentrification driven by the real estate and energy sectors. Through visuals and personal stories, the documentary highlights the experiences of Puerto Rican communities facing these issues.
Toronto filmmaker Charles Officer profiles the young people of Villaways Park, a housing project on brink of historic change.
Filmed over four years, this documentary focuses on the impacts of gentrification as gay white professionals move into a largely black working-class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.
On the tiny island of Martha's Vineyard, where presidents and celebrities vacation, trophy homes threaten to destroy the islands unique character. Twelve years in the making, One Big Home follows one carpenters journey to understand the trend toward giant houses. When he feels complicit in wrecking the place he calls home, he takes off his tool belt and picks up a camera.
Rua de Santa Catarina, a street that was formerly home to dozens of local businesses and hundreds of Porto residents, now sees a crowd of tourists attracted by the cheap, disposable amenities that are popping up everywhere at once. Gentrification has decontextualized Portuguese culture, rendering the landscape uncanny. The Basin Woman, a symbol of the female workers of the historic Bolhão Market, is chased down by seagulls in the midst of this transcendent chaos.
A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.
The Fall of the I-Hotel brings to life the battle for housing in San Francisco. The brutal eviction of the International Hotel's tenants culminated a decade of spirited resistance to the razing of Manilatown. The Fall of the I-Hotel works on several levels. It not only documents the struggle to save the I-Hotel, but also gives an overview of Filipino American history.
A short film about the changing face of London Soho and the implications of gentrification on Mimi, an aging transvestite.
Andrómaco
The working-class Tuindorp Nieuwendam neighborhood in Amsterdam-Noord is like a village within the city. Many natives of the Northern Netherlands still live in the characteristically built houses, a unique variation on the Amsterdam School. With humor and Amsterdam directness, they share their stories about what's happening in their lives and in the neighborhood. Recently, a new generation of residents has also discovered the Noord district. How do residents view these changes and the neighborhood's transformation? Was everything better in the past, or are new connections emerging between residents, old and new?
A tropical fish shop in the East End of London, the last of what used to be many. Tiny, watery dramas inside fish tanks accompany the thoughts of local fish-keepers, while father and son Big Tel and Little Tel work to keep the shop alive.
A street corner in Berlin-Moabit is changing: an aging supermarket is being turned into a construction site and eventually a new building. Shelves are being cleared, walls torn down, breaks taken, and money counted. Between refrigerated shelves, scaffolding, and exposed concrete, the film overlays the different versions of the place and allows them to exist simultaneously. Sometimes playful, sometimes eerie, repetitions emerge, like echoes between worlds.
Amidst the urban transformation driven by progress, bulldozers dismantle 'illegal' settlements, leaving countless lives shattered. In the aftermath of such upheaval, one basti, sacrificed to conceal poverty during the G20 summit, and another basti, abandoned by authorities without alternative housing, illustrate the stark realities of displacement. The film delves into the daily struggles of individuals who persist in the rubble of their former homes.
Despite being only a five-minute boat ride away from Cebu City, at the foot of the country’s record-breaking new expressway, Shell Island is an unfamiliar name to many Cebuanos today. “Dalangpanan” sheds light on the island, following a day in the life of one of its residents to uncover the stories and struggles of living on a forgotten, desolate land amidst progressive, bustling cities. Through the voices of the Shell locals, audiences learn why and how they ended up settling there, and what their future could possibly be. The documentary’s title, which literally translates to “refuge” in Cebuano, is a nod to what the island might mean to those living on it—a home, a source of hope, or even more.
Rua dos Lagares
Will trees save the planet? That is the promise made by many public policies, timber companies, NGOs, and multinational corporations. With deforestation accelerating and CO2 emissions reaching record levels, planting trees is presented as a common-sense solution to the ecological disaster. But is it really that simple?
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.