Co-op Housing: The Best Move We Ever Made

Sundance award-winning director Julia Kwan’s documentary Everything Will Be captures the subtle nuances of a culturally diverse neighbourhood—Vancouver’s once thriving Chinatown—in the midst of transformation. The community’s oldest and newest members offer their intimate perspectives on the shifting landscape as they reflect on change, memory and legacy. Night and day, a neon sign that reads "EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT" looms over Chinatown. Everything is going to be alright, indeed, but the big question is for whom?

Located in Carcavelos, Quinta Nova de Santo António, or Quinta dos Ingleses, as it is recognized by the population, shelters a small community of people affected by the housing crisis. Natives and immigrants, deprived of a roof over their heads, carry on with their lives in search of better opportunities and a breeze of change. Guided by residents' voices, this documentary is based on the adaptability of human beings in the face of life's adversities and their constant pursue of happiness.

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

The story of ten trans girls who form a co-op theatre to be able to stop working as prostitutes. The protagonists tell us their dreams, show their daily struggles and share their experiences and realities to be accepted and belong to society as well.

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

Společně k cíli

A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.

Documentary devoted to the architectural and urban planning designs of Le Corbusier. The architect supports his in-depth reflection on the city and its necessary adaptation to modern life with plans, drawings and images, particularly Paris, whose revolutionary development dreamed of by Le Corbusier is exhibited here. Its first projects will remain at the stage of a model: the modernization plan for the city of Algiers. Some will be created by other architects: Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro, UN Palace in New York. From the post-war period in less than 10 years, Le Corbusier created large housing units in Marseille, Nantes, a chapel in Ronchamps, a factory in Saint-Dié, a town in Chandigarh in India. Through diagrams, the architect presents his theory of the "radiant city", the mathematical key modulor of his work as well as his project for reorganizing the countryside, industrial and urban cities into a grouping around a cooperative system.

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.

Because of the big housing problem in the US many people move into cheap, run down hotels, the so-called Flophouse hotels. Twelve-year-old Mikal was born and raised in a hotel room he shares with his parents, who struggle with substance abuse. Driven by love and a desire for a better life, his greatest wish is for his mother to stop drinking. Mikal is bright and articulate, but his parents’ struggles prevent them from giving him the stability he needs. Through Mikal’s perspective, the film paints an intimate portrait of resilience, hope, and the harsh realities of life on society’s margins.

Homelessness in the United States takes many forms. For Elizabeth Herrera, David Lima and their four children, housing instability has meant moving between unsafe apartments, motels, relatives’ couches, shelters, the streets and their car. After 15 years of this uncertainty, the family moved into their first stable housing — an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Too many stories can tell the horrible consequences of the housing crisis. Those of Jeannette and Frances make us feel the difficult experience of eviction. During long months of anguish, brief hopes and uprooting, Jeannette and Frances struggle, alone and surrounded, against a phenomenon that is becoming more and more pronounced: losing your home.

Successfully completed your studies - now what? Raffly already has a lucrative job offer from a large German company, but neither an apartment nor a work permit.

This feature documentary takes a look at how the Halifax/Dartmouth community in Nova Scotia was stimulated by a week-long session held by a panel of specialists from different fields who met with members of this urban community to consider the future of the area and the responsibility of the citizens and government in planning the future.

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

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.

The human side of town planning, as exemplified in Baltimore, Maryland. The Coldspring Project concerned a proposed housing development for lower and upper income levels on a three hundred-acre site adjoining a wildlife sanctuary. The film records the differences aired in meetings of various interest groups that tried to modify the plan according to their views, and the compromise reached, based on plans drawn up by Montréal architect Moshe Safdie.

Five floors. Forty apartments. Rats, leaks and debts. In Pantin, I live in a building with a danger order. Under court order, we have to renovate it. Between Dantesque arguments, missing money and humor as a fire extinguisher, I film our collective rescue.

Amid a severe housing crisis that made international headlines in 2011, the federal government imposed third-party management on the Attawapiskat First Nation. In response, the First Nation’s leadership filed a challenge in federal court, claiming the appointment was unreasonable, contrary to law and harmful to community members. Alanis Obomsawin documents the remarkable judicial review that ensued in April 2012 in this companion work to her feature documentary The People of the Kattawapiskak River.

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!