urbanism

Evil Does Not Exist

Wed, 06 Dec 2023

Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a camping site near Takumi's house offering city residents a comfortable "escape" to nature.

The Noise of Time

Thu, 27 Jun 2024

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.

Dear Diary

Fri, 12 Nov 1993

Nanni Moretti recalls in his diary three slice of life stories characterized by a sharply ironic look: in the first one he wanders through a deserted Rome, in the second he visits a reclusive friend on an island, and in the last he has to grapple with an unknown illness.

Alternate Spaces

Thu, 15 Dec 2022

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

Operation: Jane Walk

Thu, 15 Mar 2018

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.

La Meilleure Façon de tracer

Mon, 18 Jan 2010

Ellas en la ciudad

Thu, 22 May 2025

"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.

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

Fri, 21 Apr 2017

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.

Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square

Sat, 24 Dec 2022

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."

Halifax Neighbourhood Center Project

Sun, 01 Jan 1967

Shows a campaign launched in Halifax in 1967 to probe the core of poverty in that city--low incomes, ill health and inadequate housing affect more than twelve thousand people in the central area. The project combines the efforts of local agencies with those of government agencies to alleviate these conditions.

The Coldspring Project

Tue, 01 Jan 1974

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.

Promises, Promises ...

Mon, 01 Jan 1973

This short film explores the problems and potentials of small towns in the Drumheller Valley region of Alberta. Citizen participation in the growth and improvement of the region is encouraged through the Task Force on Urbanization and the Future. However, the Task Force initiative is eventually curtailed, as unemployment and uncertainty enter the picture. The film provides an interesting portrait of a region in socio-economic flux.

Dorchester: au coeur de la mêlée

Sat, 11 Jan 2025

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 Forest

Tue, 14 Aug 2018

A group of people in a dystopian future is led through the last forest in existence. Plants? What were they again?

Farewell Oak Street

Mon, 15 Jun 1953

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.

Entre 10 et 100 Hertz

Fri, 22 Sep 2023

Encounter on Urban Environment

Fri, 01 Jan 1971

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.

New Life S.A.

Thu, 03 Dec 2020

A young architect embarks on an ambitious real state development project in Brasília, convinced that he could actually help transform people’s lives and build a new form of society. But his utopia begins to fall apart when his dreams get in the way of corporate corruption and personal interests.

Little Burgundy

Mon, 01 Jan 1968

"This film is one of the first French Unit productions of the “Société Nouvelle/Challenge for Change” program. When an old area of Montréal is to be demolished to make way for a new low-income housing development, is there anything the residents can do to protect their own interests? The film documents such a situation in the Little Burgundy district of Montréal and shows how the residents organized themselves into a committee that successfully influenced the city’s housing policy." - Anthology Film Archives

Jaime Lerner - Uma História de Sonhos

Thu, 08 Sep 2016