0
Since the end of World War II, one of kind of urban residential development has dominate how cities in North America have grown, the suburbs. In these artificial neighborhoods, there is a sense of careless sprawl in an car dominated culture that ineffectually tries to create the more organically grown older communities. Interspersed with the comments of various experts about the nature of suburbia
Toronto filmmaker Charles Officer profiles the young people of Villaways Park, a housing project on brink of historic change.
The Baselstrasse is a street in Lucerne. People call it "Rue de Blamage" – it's a noisy street tucked into a narrow space between a hill and a train track. The people who live here don't usually mingle with the rich and famous, but even the roughest haunt can be a home to those who live and work there – and Baselstrasse's two kilometers of asphalt are no different.
A tropical fish shop in the East End of London, the last of what used to be many. Tiny, watery dramas inside fish tanks accompany the thoughts of local fish-keepers, while father and son Big Tel and Little Tel work to keep the shop alive.
Wildlife tries to survive within a concrete landscape. A filthy fox limps.
When Tomoko finds some messages for a 'Mr Smith' on a lost mobile phone, she finds herself on an 'Alice in Wonderland' journey through Tokyo's boulevards and back alleys. From the tyranny of symmetry in soaring office blocks - to buildings that look like space-ships, this creative documentary shows us the city's soul.
A film about a district in Buda, which to this day cannot face the inconceivably cruel crimes committed by its former inhabitants.
Since 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.
The Fall of the I-Hotel brings to life the battle for housing in San Francisco. The brutal eviction of the International Hotel's tenants culminated a decade of spirited resistance to the razing of Manilatown. The Fall of the I-Hotel works on several levels. It not only documents the struggle to save the I-Hotel, but also gives an overview of Filipino American history.
In 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.
Urban architecture as seen through the eyes of four female veterans in the field.
Young members of 3 New Orleans school marching bands grow up in America's most musical city, and one of its most dangerous. Their band directors get them ready to perform in the Mardi Gras parades, and teach them to succeed and to survive.
A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Ayi 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.
Chronicling the events surrounding the protests generated by the proposed redevelopment of an empty lot at 105 Keefer St., located at the heart of Vancouver's Chinatown.
The first in-depth analysis of the unspoken ethnic component behind the most devastating socio-economic movement in America today.
This documentary is a portrait of Point St. Charles, one of Montreal’s notoriously bleak neighbourhoods. Many of the residents are English-speaking and of Irish origin; many of them are also on welfare. Considered to be one of the toughest districts in all of Canada, Point St. Charles is poor in terms of community facilities, but still full of rich contrasts and high spirits – that is, most of the time.
Sitting at the intersection of two main arteries of traffic on Melbournes Northside is a giant yellow rat that is pointing, with a long gnarled claw, to its explicitly large bottom. This yellow rat is the mascot for the small business Glenlyon Motors. This unusual mascot and the absence of an explanation for its existence has many residents of Melbournes north side puzzled. 'A Rats Arse' finally answers the question on every Northside residents lips - “Why?!” - and along the way reveals something about identity, values, community, and the people who exist within them.