Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

The heart of Caracas

November 2013 •Spanish

Caracas has been changing since the nineteenth century this is a story that tries to explain why the Venezuelan capital is complex, chaotic and fertile. In light of these new evidences, community experiments, social awareness and organization of people, seem to be the necessary ingredients to rescue a metropolis that is not yet completely lost.

Jaime Lerner - Uma História de Sonhos

September 2016 •Portuguese

Amancio Williams

November 2013 •English

A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.

Düsseldorf - Balanced Urban Growth

June 1974 •English

Individualized for profit, yet harmonious in its whole, Düsseldorf has met and largely conquered the conflicting demands of economic growth and human environment.

Basingstoke - Runcorn - British New Towns

January 1974 •French

Great Britain was the first country to plan the establishment of 'new towns' to house the overflow from rapidly expanding industrial centres. Today these towns number over one hundred. This film examines the operation of two of them.

Urbanisme africain

January 1962 •French

Directed by Jean Rouch.

City Limits

January 1971 •English

Author and activist Jane Jacobs talks about the problems and virtues of North American cities.

Everything Will Be

April 2014 •English

Sundance award-winning director Julia Kwan’s documentary Everything Will Be captures the subtle nuances of a culturally diverse neighbourhood—Vancouver’s once thriving Chinatown—in the midst of transformation. The community’s oldest and newest members offer their intimate perspectives on the shifting landscape as they reflect on change, memory and legacy. Night and day, a neon sign that reads "EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT" looms over Chinatown. Everything is going to be alright, indeed, but the big question is for whom?

The Little Ancestor

September 2024 •

An ancestral house builds itself, comes to life, and shows us its story spanning one hundred fifty years. Through the ages, it allows us to perceive the passage of time.

Together We Cycle

June 2022 •English

The film Together we cycle investigates the critical events that has led to the revival of the Dutch cycling culture. For most people, cycling in the Netherlands, seems a natural phenomenon. However, until the 1970s the development of mobility in the Netherlands followed trents across the globe. The bicycle had had its day, and the future belonged to the car. The only thing that had to be done was to adapt cities to the influx of cars. Then Dutch society took a different turn. Against all odds people kept on cycling. The question why this happened in the Netherlands, has not an easy answer. There are many factors, events and circumstances that worked together, both socially and policy-wise. In Together we cycle, key players tell the story of the bumpy road which led to the current state. Where cycling is an obvious choice for most citizens.

Huis clos pour un quartier

Invalid date •French

Québec...?

January 1967 •French

This short documentary film is a fascinating portrait of urban and rural Quebec in the late 1960s, as the province entered modernity. The collective work produced for the Quebec Ministry of Industry and Commerce calls on several major Quebec figures.

Alternate Spaces

December 2022 •English

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

The Downtown Project

January 2011 •English

Just a stone’s throw from downtown Montreal is the largest social housing complex in Quebec. Built in 1959 where the red-light district used to be, Les Habitations Jeanne-Mance have retained something of the area’s seedy reputation for poverty, prostitution, drugs and violence. But who really knows the projects and the people who live there? Delving beneath the prejudices and stereotypes, director Isabelle Longtin ventured inside the buildings and met the residents.

Matta Viel

June 2017 •Spanish

Focusing on the Matta-Viel complex, the immediate environment, the program, the materiality, the community of neighbors and its architects and what they represented in the modern Latin American architectural panorama.

Encounter on Urban Environment

January 1971 •English

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.

Uma Cidade Chamada Tiradentes

March 2006 •Portuguese

The documentary offers an overview of the district of Cidade Tiradentes and its inhabitants. It starts by the acquisition of land by the public authorities from the 1970s onwards, to the occupation of what is today one of the largest housing projects in Latin America.

Dorchester: au coeur de la mêlée

January 2025 •French

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.

La Meilleure Façon de tracer

January 2010 •French

Le Corbusier, l'architecte du bonheur

December 1957 •French

Documentary devoted to the architectural and urban planning designs of Le Corbusier. The architect supports his in-depth reflection on the city and its necessary adaptation to modern life with plans, drawings and images, particularly Paris, whose revolutionary development dreamed of by Le Corbusier is exhibited here. Its first projects will remain at the stage of a model: the modernization plan for the city of Algiers. Some will be created by other architects: Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro, UN Palace in New York. From the post-war period in less than 10 years, Le Corbusier created large housing units in Marseille, Nantes, a chapel in Ronchamps, a factory in Saint-Dié, a town in Chandigarh in India. Through diagrams, the architect presents his theory of the "radiant city", the mathematical key modulor of his work as well as his project for reorganizing the countryside, industrial and urban cities into a grouping around a cooperative system.