G – 21 Scenes from Gottsunda

Radiant City(en)

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

Bachar à la ZAD(fr)

Banlie.ue(fr)

ZONA/(it)

Milan, western suburbs. In one of the nine districts ("zone") of the city, the students of the "Rosa Luxemburg" trade school meditate over the meaning of living in the suburbs. And they do so using their smartphones, filming their days and looking for a common thread among their lives. Crossing and mixing video-diaries, documentary shooting and fictional scenes, the project struggles to take a definite shape: every character and perspective channels the tale in a different direction, escaping from linear narrative lines and bringing us to some kind of archipelago.

The Elephant in the Living Room(en)

A film about the controversial world of exotic animal ownership within the suburbs of the United States. "The Elephant in the Living Room" offers an unprecedented glimpse into the fascinating subculture of trading and raising the most deadly and exotic animals in the world as common household pets.

93, la belle rebelle(fr)

Splendour of the Heavens(en)

A film about astronomy which also happens to show views of the ancient city of Winchester, before focussing on a particular house in the suburbs with its own observatory.

Portrait of Penge(en)

Film about the town of Penge featuring local personalities, housing, shopping, traffic and the Penge formation dancers.

Who Killed Fourth Ward?(en)

Originally founded as Freedman’s Town after the Civil War, The Fourth Ward is one of the oldest and most culturally significant black communities in Houston, Texas. In the 1970s, the city along with big business interests planned to redevelop the Fourth Ward in order to revitalize the dilapidated real estate and freshen the image of downtown Houston. The price of progress in this case would be the removal of many poor black families. The film explores a complex series of encounters with elected city officials, businessmen and the people of Fourth Ward in order to better understand how a city like Houston works. Who makes the decisions about where resources are spent and so determines the growth and wealth of the community.

Les "Folles de la Place Vendôme"(fr)

A documentary released in 1985 about the Mothers of Place Vendôme.

Les Enfants de l’ovale... Un essai qui transforme !(ar)

Small Mall(is)

A Eurovision singer, Iceland's strongest woman, a male model, a plumber who wants to direct movies. They all work in the shopping mall that this documentary focuses on ... most of them want to get out, even just to the bigger mall down the road.

Up to Down(it)

Naples. Home of the unbowed, of madmen and paupers. A city that refuses to lick anyone's boots, let alone stoop to pretense. This documentary bad trip takes us on a tour of the city's dismal suburbs and into the homes of the marginalized and rejected: a man, a girl, and a masked boxer - three protagonists yearning for something else, although they're not quite sure what. (Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2019)

Mannequins(da)

Mannequins examines the suburb as a state-of-mind through the eyes of a 7th grade teenage girl.

Council House(fr)

The film takes place in a Parisian suburb and brings us into the closest possible contact with the people who live here and takes us into the privacy of their lives. A series of personal accounts and shots of the decorated interiors of apartments and houses with no hint as to where we are, no names. No stigma attached, no label given. For these are not the subject of the film, which seeks instead to give a face and a voice – a sort of private landscape – to a space that has come to represent all that is standardized and anonymous.

Young Solitude(fr)

Claire Simon portrays an important time for any individual, from 16 to 18 years of age. Set in the Paris suburbs in high school (for those lucky enough to go), teenagers chat after and even during class, sitting in the hallway or outside on a bench, looking at the city below them.

We(fr)

An urban train link, the RER B, crosses Paris and its outskirts from north to south. A journey within indistinct spaces known as inner cities and suburbs. Several portraits, all individual pieces that form a whole. We.

Hovsjö on fire(sv)

A problem area burdened by burning cars, stone throwing and crime. This is how the district of Hovsjö in Södertälje, Sweden, is often described. An image that is further reinforced when one day the school burns down, just when the autumn term is about to begin. But in Hovsjö there is also something completely different...

Pescenopolis(hr)

Pescenica is an old industrial suburb of Zagreb. As a satirical depiction of Croatia's recent politics, it has been declared independent republic. What's it like there today? Over a year, the film crew was combing streets, avenues, parks and backyards, focusing on the lives of four Pescenica inhabitants: its self-proclaimed president, a teacher in a Roma school, a cleaning lady in a film distribution company and a young stage director. All that in order to portray Pescenopolis, the film's protagonist that floats between mud and clouds.

New Towns for Old(en)

Sheffield stands in as 'Smokedale', an industrial Everytown, in this stirring call for "new schools, new hospitals, new roads, new life", after WWII.