World In A City

A journey into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experiences in modern day Japan. For some hafus, Japan is the only home they know, for some living in Japan is an entirely new experience, and the others are caught somewhere between two different worlds.

Director Mark Wexler embarks on a worldwide trek to investigate just what it means to grow old and what it could mean to really live forever. But whose advice should he take? Does 94-year-old exercise guru Jack LaLanne have all the answers, or does Buster, a 101-year-old chain-smoking, beer-drinking marathoner? What about futurist Ray Kurzweil, a laughter yoga expert, or an elder porn star? Wexler explores the viewpoints of delightfully unusual characters alongside those of health, fitness and life-extension experts in this engaging new documentary, which challenges our notions of youth and aging with comic poignancy. Begun as a study in life-extension, How To Live Forever evolves into a thought-provoking examination of what truly gives life meaning.

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.

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.

Amina, Sami and Jennyfer are high school students in the Paris suburbs, in 93. At the initiative of 3 of their teachers, they embark on an unexpected investigation into a gigantic leisure park project which involves concreting agricultural land near their homes. But can we have the power to act on a territory when we are 17 years old? Funny and intrepid, these new citizens take us to meet residents of their neighborhood, property developers, farmers and even elected officials of the National Assembly. A joyful quest that challenges conventional wisdom and revives our connection to the land!

An exploration of immigration in Britain over the half century since Conservative MP Enoch Powell made his controversial speech. Issues surrounding race, religion, integration and multiculturalism are examined.

Writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs fights to save historic New York City during the ruthless redevelopment era of urban planner Robert Moses in the 1960s.

Under the Trump administration, USA is a deeply divided country. One side feeds populism and religious rectitude in a monochromatic landscape, painted white, lamenting for a past that never will return. The other side fuels diversity and multiculturalism, a biased vision of a progressive future, quite unlikely. Both sides are constantly confronted, without listening to each other. Only a few reasonable people gather to change this potentially dangerous situation.

Canada is facing a housing crisis, and cooperative housing might be a part of the solution.

A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.

Behind the scenes of a large construction site in western Switzerland, we dive into the world of construction where most of the workers are foreigners.

An effervescent facilitator and mother figure, Multicultural Liaison Officer Rosemary is undoubtedly a force of nature. Isolation in Auburn’s migrant community is a huge obstacle, and cultural norms mean that women are often tied to the house or a limited locale. Rosemary, with her larger-than-life spirit and generosity, works tirelessly to draw the women out of their homes and into society. She hosts a lively African Women’s Dinner Dance and takes them on a trip to the Blue Mountains and the NSW South Coast – introducing them to an Australia they’ve never seen before.

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

The war zone of a dystopian multiplayer shooting game is used to embark some urban explorers on a winter walk, avoiding the combats whenever possible, as peaceful observers, inhabitants of a digital world, which is a detailed replica of Midtown Manhattan.

"Africa Light" - as white local citizens call Namibia. The name suggests romance, the beauty of nature and promises a life without any problems in a country where the difference between rich and poor could hardly be greater. Namibia does not give that impression of it. If you look at its surface it seems like Africa in its most innocent and civilized form. It is a country that is so inviting to dream by its spectacular landscape, stunning scenery and fascinating wildlife. It has a very strong tourism structure and the government gets a lot of money with its magical attraction. But despite its grandiose splendor it is an endless gray zone as well. It oscillates between tradition and modernity, between the cattle in the country and the slums in the city. It shuttles from colonial times, land property reform to minimum wage for everyone. It fluctuates between socialism and cold calculated market economy.

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."

Anne Marie Nakagawa's documentary examines what it means to have a background of mixed ancestries that cannot be easily categorized. By focusing on 7 Canadians who have one parent from a European background and one of a visible minority, she attempts to get at the root of what it means to be multi-ethnic in a world that wants each person to fit into a single category.

Exploration of the territory in a delirious time-space journey through the largest Megalopolis in America.

In the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, an effective government policy of controlling land investment prevents speculation, keeps land prices down, and provides a good balance between commercial, residential and public areas.

This documentary presents a before-and-after picture of people in a large-scale public housing project in Toronto. Due to a housing shortage, they were forced to live in squalid, dingy flats and ramshackle dwellings on a crowded street in Regent Park North; now they have access to new, modern housing developments designed to offer them privacy, light and space.