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.

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

Swing con Son

Music documentary by director Rafael Marziano Tinoco from Venezuela

Beauty Factory

From oratory classes to operating room, Beauty Factory follows five girls for four months as they compete for the coveted Miss Venezuela crown; revealing the process that has won Venezuela more international beauty pageants than any other country.

El camino de las hormigas

Four nights in Caracas. A documentary essay about chaos and civilization.

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.

Frontline: The Hugo Chavez Show

Frontline examines Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez chronicling his rise to power and offering insights into his personality, policies and his shrewd use of the media.

Du béton sur nos courgettes

Snow Fighters

A close-up of a snow-bound city, and the men, money and machinery it takes to dig it out.

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.

Amancio Williams

A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.

Chiche

Chiche is an ingenious and creative man who finds a strange rock, which he believes to be a fragment of a meteorite. Despite the little hope his family has in his projects, Chiche decides to bring it to an expert to determine its true origin.

Jaime Lerner - Uma História de Sonhos

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."

Brasília

Venezuela es un Desorden

Through humor, anecdotes and their songs, mythical Venezuelan ska band Desorden Público tells their story and that of three decades of their country.

Chairs for Lovers

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

Lewis Mumford on the City, Part 1: The City - Heaven and Hell

American historian Lewis Mumford looks at the city through history.

Saskatoon: Land and Growth Control

The city of Saskatoon makes strategic decisions which prevent speculation and keep land prices down.

Real Estate

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