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0.0Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, Vietnamese refugees have built the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam, in Orange County, California. In 1999, "Little Saigon" burst onto the national stage when a store owner displayed a poster of Ho Chi Minh, triggering protests by Vietnamese Americans struggling to reconcile their past demons with their present lives. Saigon, U.S.A. uses this moment to examine this community's changing identity and growing empowerment.
7.0Genuine connections between children and nature can revolutionize our future. But is this discovery still possible in the world's major urban centers? The new chapter of "The Beginning of Life" reveals the transformative power of this concept.
7.0Before its economic decline, Detroit was a major metropolis. Now, in the 2000s, the young people of the Motor City are making it their own DIY paradise where rules are second to passion and creativity. Johnny Knoxville tours the city to meet some of the people who are creating a new Detroit on their own terms, against real adversity.
0.0Carbon vendors fight for their rights to protect their stalls from oppressors.
0.0A long-term resident of Pacific Beach explores the gradual gentrification of his once sleepy neighborhood in San Diego, California.
8.0Urban architecture as seen through the eyes of four female veterans in the field.
0.0In the heart of the rapidly gentrifying Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia three streets meet to form a bustling intersection of born-and-raised locals and dilettante millennials. Dennis Bowers falls in the former camp. He grew up playing handball on that intersection and although he can no longer afford to live there, he still comes back every week to play on the same wall at age 50 that he did at age 12. Even if he doesn’t live in the neighborhood, it’ll always be his corner.
0.0This documentary explores the complexities of Los Angeles. Blending a highly structured montage of shots exploring the city with interviews of students, the writer Henry Miller, and residents from all communities, this evocation of Angelenos' city paints a portrait of a living, constantly evolving entity.
0.0Yannick Bellon's documentary paints a portrait of a city torn between the problem of unsanitary housing, pollution corroding walls and statues, and the recurring and increasing floods—all consequences of human activity. Faced with job shortages and rampant speculation, the overarching question arises of how industries can coexist with the city of Venice. Allowing them to develop risks destroying it; driving them out risks turning it into a museum, causing its inhabitants, and thus its soul, to leave.
0.0Rua 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.
0.0A patchwork of millions of lives, urban spaces are not only streets and concrete. They are where our dreams and deepest worries unfold. Chronicle of a City drifts and strolls through time and chance encounters, moving between fantasy and reality, echoing the intimate and ghostly voices of our metropolises, reminding us that we inhabit The City as much as it inhabits us. This roaming essay is a visual and sonic meditation that invites us to see urban life as a web of sensations that move through us and draw us closer to one another, even in the midst of solitude.
6.0Ayi comes from a rural area of Eastern China and doesn’t have the residential permit that would allow her to work in Shanghai. Yet, she has been cooking in the streets for twenty years, in an old neighbourhood soon to be demolished. The film unveils the chaos of an ultra-modern city aiming to wipe out so-called substandard practices and to deport an unwanted population.
0.0At the heart of the Central Train Station in Tel Aviv stands a grand piano. It watches over the traffic moving to and from the docks, seemingly hearing and seeing everything from its own point of view. For some, the piano is a regular stop on their commute. Others, occasional travelers, encounter it in this unexpected space, inviting them, subject to their will. There, in the most bustling place is a piano that makes people take off their earphones and take part in something magical that requires no words. The piano is unplugged, the people unplug. How many of those who sit and play manage to transcend the external noise, reflecting in a different and challenging way the reality we live in, allowing us to look into ourselves?
8.0“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.
8.5The six-decade transformation of a block of houses, shown by means of artfully featured archival shots, highlights the beauty and sadness of human-made decay. In the blink of an eye 66 years pass by and a savings bank replaces a church.