Corvin variációk

The Fall of the I-Hotel

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.

La grande roue

Radiant City

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

One Big Home

On the tiny island of Martha's Vineyard, where presidents and celebrities vacation, trophy homes threaten to destroy the islands unique character. Twelve years in the making, One Big Home follows one carpenters journey to understand the trend toward giant houses. When he feels complicit in wrecking the place he calls home, he takes off his tool belt and picks up a camera.

L’apocalypse a déjà eu lieu

Little White Lie

Lacey Schwartz grew up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity - despite the open questions from those around her about how a white girl could have such dark skin. She believes her family's explanation that her looks were inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather. But when her parents abruptly split, her gut starts to tell her something different. At age of 18, she finally confronts her mother and learns the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but a black man named Rodney with whom her mother had had an affair.

Acasă, My Home

In the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta, nine children and their parents lived in perfect harmony with nature for 20 years – until they are chased out and forced to adapt to life in the big city.

I Am Gentrification. Confessions of a Scoundrel

Is the city of Zurich suffering from ‘density stress’? What is it like to live in mega cities such as São Paulo, Mexico City and Tiflis? Filmmaker Thomas Haemmerli broaches the topics of city development, architecture, density, housing market, xenophobia and gentrification from an autobiographical perspective. The path of his life has led him from a childhood in the villa district of Zürichberg, through his teenage years as squatter to flat shares, yuppie apartments and finally second homes in various cities. Only recently having become a dad, he plans to further enhance Zurich’s price appreciation by purchasing a huge, extended city apartment… This multifaceted essay not only humorously questions the filmmaker’s decisions, but also those of the right-wing conservatives, who are afraid of losing their space to immigrants, and the political left, who fail to embrace modern-age architecture.

The Dynasty

The Dynasty by the Direkt36 investigative center tells the story of the business dealings of the Prime Minister’s family over several decades. With hidden camera footage, it also shows the luxurious world built by Viktor Orbán’s son-in-law István Tiborcz and his daughter Ráhel Orbán.

Far till staden

A film about "the father" of Malmö Eric Svenning and how the city has developed during his time.

Jugaad

Jugaad is a Hindi word that can be translated as "innovative or effective solution that bends the rules". It refers to the extreme capacity developed by Mumbai's inhabitants to adapt and get around any type of constraint or obstacle posed by the city's urban structure. In a relatively small piece of land where 21 million people live today, the inhabitants of Mumbai demonstrate great creativity when it comes to managing the spaces (for sale, for prayer, for traffic) and the flows that cross them every day. Without using language, Hong Kong artist Chak Hin Leung brings together in this video a dozen unique situations in which people, animals, vehicles and natural elements intermingle and brush up against each other, without ever colliding.

Feneen

FENEEN is a journey into Senegal's urban music scene. This project was born from the meeting of Italian producer Frank Sativa with Senegalese pop-star Leuz Diwane G and Italian-Senegalese rapper F.U.L.A. This gave rise to a song, a video clip and a documentary with the same name (Feneen). Feneen portrays the current urban and music subculture of Dakar suburbs. The documentary highlights the fundamental rule of the urban subculture in debunking the stereotypical image of the African continent.

Empire City

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

Beautiful Budapest

This Traveltalk series short visits Hungary's capital, Budapest.

Canicule 2003 : Paris dans la fournaise

The heatwave of 2003 remains etched in our memories. We remember an angry emergency doctor, crowded hospital corridors, and a health minister in a polo shirt who seemed completely out of touch with reality. Between August 1 and 20, 2003, the heatwave claimed 15,000 lives. One in three victims lived in the Ile-de-France region, which was hardest hit by this deadly heatwave. This tragedy revealed many shortcomings. First, the lack of preparedness of the public authorities to deal with such a health crisis. Second, the way in which the elderly are treated. Climatologists estimate that from 2050 onwards, the summer of 2003 will be the norm. Hyper-urbanization, poor insulation in homes, and a lack of green spaces are all factors that exacerbate the effects of high temperatures.

Prime Farmland

This documentary film follows farmers and activists fighting together to stop the Indiana Enterprise Center, a mega-sized industrial park planned west of South Bend, Indiana

Unarmed Verses

Toronto filmmaker Charles Officer profiles the young people of Villaways Park, a housing project on brink of historic change.

City by the Sea, or how to survive in Venice

Yannick 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.

The Street

The baker, the pie-maker and the diminished long-term community of Hoxton Street face gentrification in this compelling portrait of a rapidly changing London.

Basin of Souls

Rua 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.