Summer, City and a Camera

Summer 2021, in Damascus city, some young emerging directors roamed the city's streets to follow their dreams and shoot their first movies with the simplest available tools. so, the city would open her arms and hug them day and night with her streets and neighborhoods.

Clarissa Uprooted: Youth and Elders Uncover the Story of Black Rochester

Clarissa Uprooted depicts the Third Ward as a microcosm of Rochester’s—and many northern US cities’—history. From neighborhood camaraderie, international jazz music, and thriving black-owned businesses, to redlining, urban renewal, and other racist policies. The film features some of the elders who lived this history and the youth who are living with the consequences today.

Flag Wars

Filmed over four years, this documentary focuses on the impacts of gentrification as gay white professionals move into a largely black working-class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.

Mijn Noord

The working-class Tuindorp Nieuwendam neighborhood in Amsterdam-Noord is like a village within the city. Many natives of the Northern Netherlands still live in the characteristically built houses, a unique variation on the Amsterdam School. With humor and Amsterdam directness, they share their stories about what's happening in their lives and in the neighborhood. Recently, a new generation of residents has also discovered the Noord district. How do residents view these changes and the neighborhood's transformation? Was everything better in the past, or are new connections emerging between residents, old and new?

Universam Grochów

Universam Grochów was a now-defunct shopping and service mall that emerged in the 1970s in Warsaw's Praga-Południe district. This department store functioned as a shopping center and a hub for the social life of right-bank Warsaw. At the end of 2016, the iconic building was demolished. The film captures the final moments of the enterprise, with long-term and dedicated employees guiding us through its corridors. Their approach to work and economic model make Universam a living museum and a phenomenon at the intersection of urban planning and sociology. We also see the significant void left in the local community by the building's demolition.

Between the Holy and the Profane

Documentary film that takes a visual and anthropological journey through man's spirit across the thin line dividing excessive faith in religious believes and the passion with which he devotes himself to worldly pleasures in a city that coexists in harmony with its double standards. Religion, faith, politics, violence and death are intimately bound in this social portrait.

Bubble

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.

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.

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.

Unarmed Verses

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

El apagón: Aquí vive gente

“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.

Anonymous

A short film about the changing face of London Soho and the implications of gentrification on Mimi, an aging transvestite.

Sylvia Kristel – Paris

Sylvia Kristel – Paris is a portrait of Sylvia Kristel , best known for her role in the 1970’s erotic cult classic Emmanuelle, as well as a film about the impossibility of memory in relation to biography. Between November 2000 and June 2002 Manon de Boer recorded the stories and memories of Kristel. At each recording session she asked her to speak about a city where Kristel has lived: Paris, Los Angeles, Brussels or Amsterdam; over the two years she spoke on several occasions about the same city. At first glance the collection of stories appears to make up a sort of biography, but over time it shows the impossibility of biography: the impossibility of ‘plotting’ somebody’s life as a coherent narrative.

Art Security Service

The Little Ancestor

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.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Berlin Babylon

A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Philippe Soupault et le surréalisme

Caged Men: Tales from Chicago's SRO Hotels

Caged. Invisible. Shamed. Trapped. These words mark the tenants, clerks and even the owners of Chicago's last remaining Singe Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels. These small spaces are home for many at the bottom of Chicago's housing ladder. Cloaked in darkness and secrecy, these hotels are often maligned as drug dens and havens for prostitution but the people who live, work and own these hotels have never fully shared their stories. Caged Men is a feature-length documentary which examines the disquieting stories of near-homeless Americans living on the margins and their invisibility in a largely indifferent and, at times, hostile community. It attempts to lend a voice to SRO residents, clerks, owners and to the hotels themselves.

Vila do Conde Extended

A boy from Vila do Conde records a love letter on a cassette. His voice blends with music, archive images and stories from the past, some lived and others heard.