World In A City

World in a City is a portrait of Toronto and the steps Torontonians are taking to create a society that welcomes and encourages new immigrants to flourish

A Capital Plan

This short documentary features a portrait of Ottawa in the mid-20th century, as the nascent Canadian capital grew with force but without direction. Street congestion, air pollution, and rail traffic were all the negative results of a city that had grown without being properly planned. French architect and urban designer Jacques Gréber stepped in to create a far-sighted plan for the future development of Ottawa. With tracks moved, factories relocated, and neighbourhoods redesigned as separate communities, Ottawa became the capital city of true beauty and dignity we know today.

A Hundred Years Underground

A film looking at the first 100 years of the Underground Railway in London from 1863 to 1963. A range of well known people and senior managers speak alongside some excellent archive film.

Let's Look at Water

This short documentary shows how a city's water supply is purified at a filtration plant. The complex system of the underground mains that supply all parts of the city with water is also illustrated, as is the safeguarding of water supplies on trains, ships and aircrafts.

Brasília

El corazón de Caracas

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.

Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square

In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."

The Mystery of Bay Bulls

A film on the "SAPPHIRE", the oldest identified wreck in Canadian waters. Parks Canada's underwater archaeology team is responsible for the excavation of the three-hundred-year-old frigate.

A Short History of the Highrise

“A Short History of the Highrise” is an interactive documentary that explores the 2,500-year global history of vertical living and issues of social equality in an increasingly urbanized world. The centerpiece of the project is four short films. The first three (“Mud,” “Concrete” and “Glass”) draw on The New York Times's extraordinary visual archives, a repository of millions of photographs that have largely been unseen in decades. Each film is intended to evoke a chapter in a storybook, with rhyming narration and photographs brought to life with intricate animation. The fourth chapter (“Home”) comprises images submitted by the public. The interactive experience incorporates the films and, like a visual accordion, allows viewers to dig deeper into the project’s themes with additional archival materials, text and microgames.

Elizabethan Express

Originally intended as an advertising short, this film follows The Elizabethan, a non-stop British Railways service from London to Edinburgh along the East Coast Main Line. A nostalgic record of the halcyon years of steam on British Railways and the ex-LNER Class A4.

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

Writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs fights to save historic New York City during the ruthless redevelopment era of urban planner Robert Moses in the 1960s.

Cold-Rodders

An amusing view of the machine that has taken the country by winter storm: the snowmobile, revving, raring, ready to go. What the motorboat was to the summer lake, this motorized sled now is to the snow-covered fields. This film shows it all--the pull of this sit-down sport, the eagerness of the trade to keep it booming, the daring rivalry of the racing crowd, and the bemused pleasure of the family outing.

Du béton sur nos courgettes

747: The Jumbo Revolution

At any given moment hundreds of people are soaring above us in a 747. From the moment the very first jumbo jet took off in 1969, it has been the aircraft against which all others are judged. But its 45-year journey has been anything but smooth. This is the definitive story of the Boeing 747, from its milestones and triumphs to its turning points and disasters. Witness its history through rare archival footage and tales from pilots, engineers, designers, and passengers who were there when it all began.

The Navigators: Pathfinders of the Pacific

In hand-built, double-hulled canoes sixty feet long, the ancestors of today's Polynesians sailed vast distances using only the waves, the stars, and the flights of birds to navigate. Anthropologist Sanford Low visits the Caroline Islands of Micronesia to meet Mau Piailug, the last navigator initiated on his island and one of few men still practicing this once-essential art. He demonstrates his skill by sailing a replica canoe 2500 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti with no modern navigational instruments.

Real Estate

Exploring the impact of the now defunct Steinberg supermarkets on the urban environment.

Some People Have to Suffer

Bridgeview, British Columbia is less than 30 kilometres from downtown Vancouver. The residents were promised a sewer system in 1953, but more than 20 years later the sewer system has yet to be built.

Co-op Housing: The Best Move We Ever Made

Canada is facing a housing crisis, and cooperative housing might be a part of the solution.

Halifax Neighbourhood Center Project

Chairs for Lovers

Architect Stanley King involves the local Vancouver community in urban design.