Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.

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.

Amora

Author and activist Jane Jacobs talks about the problems and virtues of North American cities.

Alliances Terrestres

Focusing on the Matta-Viel complex, the immediate environment, the program, the materiality, the community of neighbors and its architects and what they represented in the modern Latin American architectural panorama.

Under Dorchester Square in Montreal lies the cemetery where 55,000 people were buried in the 19th century. The square is still at the heart of social conflicts in Quebec, 150 years later.

The documentary offers an overview of the district of Cidade Tiradentes and its inhabitants. It starts by the acquisition of land by the public authorities from the 1970s onwards, to the occupation of what is today one of the largest housing projects in Latin America.

DO CONCRETO A ZABUMBA

Singapore’s coastlines are always in flux - a delicate dance between the receding tides and the rising earthmovers. 'seaward' drifts through the peripheries of this very landscape, offering a quiet meditation on the life that endures at the edges of a changing island.

Huis clos pour un quartier

Exemplary in its town planning and administration, Bologna has been transformed into a city that is avant-garde, both socially and culturally, yet still preserves its historical roots.

A close-up of a snow-bound city, and the men, money and machinery it takes to dig it out.

The film Together we cycle investigates the critical events that has led to the revival of the Dutch cycling culture. For most people, cycling in the Netherlands, seems a natural phenomenon. However, until the 1970s the development of mobility in the Netherlands followed trents across the globe. The bicycle had had its day, and the future belonged to the car. The only thing that had to be done was to adapt cities to the influx of cars. Then Dutch society took a different turn. Against all odds people kept on cycling. The question why this happened in the Netherlands, has not an easy answer. There are many factors, events and circumstances that worked together, both socially and policy-wise. In Together we cycle, key players tell the story of the bumpy road which led to the current state. Where cycling is an obvious choice for most citizens.

"Ellas en la ciudad" (Them in the City) focuses on the first settlers of the neighborhoods on the outskirts of Seville. Through their stories, we discover that they have been the backbone of a city that has turned its back on them.

La Meilleure Façon de tracer

This short documentary film is a fascinating portrait of urban and rural Quebec in the late 1960s, as the province entered modernity. The collective work produced for the Quebec Ministry of Industry and Commerce calls on several major Quebec figures.

A short documentary on the River Ouse, following it downstream from Lewes to Newhaven, meditating on the surrounding area.

This full-length documentary from the Challenge for Change program addresses housing issues affecting Montreal in the mid-1970s. As the city is restoring older apartments through direct action and government subsidies, new, low-rent housing is being integrated into old neighborhoods.

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.