Amidst the ivy-draped remnants of once-notorious public housing projects, FOR THOSE THAT LIVED THERE weaves a visual tapestry, navigating the poignant impacts of gentrification, the displacement of Black legacies, and the emergent migrant narratives. Against Chicago's ever-evolving skyline, this evocative exploration immerses audiences into the soul of a neighborhood transformed.

A portrait of Austria captured with a broken camera, accompanied by an enhanced and AI-generated version of the national anthem.
2025
Baptist Fernandes is an undertaker by trade, but he has dealt with death all his life.
2024

The physical media format of film is in a constant state of unease, but what happens when industry professional and legally blind business owner, Shelby McIntyre, takes it upon himself to open Tampa’s only true video shop?
2024

The director, a young man in his thirties going through a life crisis, approaches his estranged parents to help him paint his apartment. Conversations accompanied by a paint roller and paint thinner open up old wrongs while revealing the complexity of interpersonal relationships. The absence of communication, or the lack of will to communicate, as a symptom of contemporary family ties, stands in contrast to caring for a family of pigeons that has made its nest on the director's balcony. The film, in its civility and authenticity, follows the lessons of a book dedicated to amateur filmmakers and thus enters into a subversive dialogue with the paradigms of film pedagogy.
2024

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.
2024

"The Boy Of The Fish" follows Noon, a young boy living in a Syrian refugee camp, who finds solace and a sense of freedom in a whale-shaped doll he names "Bahr." Set against the challenging realities of camp life, Noon’s journey is both a story of resilience and a testament to the boundless imagination of childhood. Through vivid symbolism and a unique soundscape, the film explores themes of loss, hope, and the longing for freedom amidst confinement. Shot entirely on an iPhone due to restrictions in the conflict zone, the film combines raw authenticity with poetic depth to capture the emotional landscape of a young soul navigating adversity.
2024

Two instants separated by 99 days conflict with each other.
2022

West Estate spotlights the severe housing problems in Hong Kong, taking the spirit of resistance outside of the protest. The damaged walls in the cage-like tenements reflect the many forms of social injustice as well as Hongkongers’ widespread sense of rootlessness. Connecting three stories from different households like puzzle pieces, the film depicts people’s despair over issues of family, sexuality, love, and freedom.
2020

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.
2019

The first in-depth analysis of the unspoken ethnic component behind the most devastating socio-economic movement in America today.
2017

2013

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.
2007

Portrait of a Russian village near Kaliningrad and its multiethnic inhabitants.
2001

David Jones investigates how 1960s council housing came to be built so poorly that thousands later needed to be demolished.
1984

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.
1983

The 1974 coup d'état set in motion a revolutionary process in which the radical transformation of the relationships that had previously existed within the family, in the workplace, and throughout society has never allowed for a return to the past.
1976
1967

Karel Vachek’s graduate film offers us a documentary essay which is both a light-hearted and aggressive little piece and also a parody of investigative film journalism. The Strážnice folk festival, backed by the cultural Party apparatus of the time, for years had little to commend itself to authentic folklore. In the film the event assumes the form of a bizarre stage spectacle with almost surrealistic elements that Vachek reinforces with unconventional approaches (commentary appearing as titles on screen, singing, declamations into the camera, feature etudes, the fusion of news coverage and fiction). The result is a stirring film collage depicting various characters, from crowd-pleasers, Easter egg decorators, kitsch artists and peddlers, to museologists and local residents, all of whom come up against the eccentric "identical” twin reporters Karel and Jan Saudek and a bored actress who appears as an extra. Using their special blend of irony and wit, they present us with the sad truth.
1964
Evanston, a suburb just north of Chicago, touts its progressivism and inclusion. It was the first city in the U.S. to offer reparations for Black residents and every street corner boasts Black Lives Matter signs, but Evanston’s Black residents have a different story to tell. If you travel to the other side of Evanston, the historically Black ward, ‘For Rent’ signs are indicators of the thousands of Black residents leaving, gentrification encroaching, and streets becoming quiet. It wasn't always this way. There used to be a vibrant, thriving hub for the Black community at the Emerson YMCA. One in every five Black boys in Evanston were members, Nat King Cole played at the Y's prom, and for many residents, it became a second home. That was until the building was burned down in 1980. The destruction happened in the name of progress, despite the Black community's protests.
via print and film, love and music, state propaganda and people's archives, five-year plans and Emergency.