Urban Studies

Focuses on the Russian city of Ekaterinburg as a case-study illustration of the former Soviet Union's difficult transition from a socialist to a capitalist economy.

Weimar: A Modern Day Renaissance City is a celebration of the small town that has capped its triumphant comeback by being recognized as the Culture city of Europe in 1999. This video looks at Weimar's past and present.

For nearly thirty years, in the longest ongoing war in Africa, the Eritrean people waged a bitter struggle against the occupying forces of the Ethiopian government, which were armed by the Soviet Union and Israel.

Examines the operations of the Bronx Housing Court which annually mediates some 125,000 disputes between tenants and landlords, including evictions, rent strikes and housing code violations. The film also explores the social and economic causes for the growing problem of urban housing decay.

Tells the stories of poor people in Philadelphia who illegally take over or `squat' in abandoned houses in order to get places to live and to change housing policy locally and nationally. The film focuses on a 22-year-old single mother of three small children who becomes a leader in the national squatters movement, and includes numerous interviews with activists, real estate developers and government officials.

Examines gentrification, a process by which an underdeveloped neighborhood is `upgraded' by real estate speculation, with higher income individuals moving into and improving existing properties, but also displacing many of the neighborhood's longtime residents.

Depicts the efforts of Latino residents of New York's Lower East Side who have taken over their own buildings abandoned by landlords. Organizing themselves into Tenants' Associations, they undertake the repair and renovation of their decaying tenements and provide their own services.

Examines the plight of `squatters' in Brooklyn, NY as they try to claim buildings abandoned by the city and to transform them into habitable dwellings.

This video on the subculture of graffiti features interviews with numerous graffiti 'artists,' follows them on "bombing" expeditions, attends a national graffiti art conference, and records encounters between graffiti writers and adults angry about defacement of private and public property.

Filmmaker Nora Jacobson spent eight years documenting Hoboken's battles over gentrification, from boom in the '80s to bust in the '90s. This epic, dramatially engrossing documentary features a real-life cast of long-time residents, newly arrived Yuppies, tenants' organizers, real estate developers, street people, immigrants from around the world, and local politicians.

During the Sixties and early Seventies, banks, insurance companies, the City of New York, and many landlords drew a red-line around the Bronx and abandoned its neighborhoods. More than 12,000 fires burned each year, 300,000 people fled, and in the South Bronx 40% of the homes were destroyed.

Employing an imaginative mix of song and dance, narrative, documentary, parody, and a TV game show, this video examines urban crime in America and how the atmosphere of pervasive fear that envelops our cities encourages racial antagonism.

An offbeat documentary portrait of Lily Dale, New York, one of America's oldest spiritualist communities, where just about everyone is a psychic or a medium who claims to be able to communicate with the dead. The video includes interviews with several mediums in Lily Dale and shows them as they give private readings, perform public healings, and take part in outdoor services where they receive messages "from the spirit side of life."

This video examines the world of New York City's hot-dog vendors, revealing their lifestyles, hopes and dreams, and the political struggle in which New York's Mayor Rudy Giuliani is attempting to restrict their access to the city's streets. It features interviews with a wide variety of vendors, and members of the city's Vendor Review Panel and Business Improvement District.

This video tells the story of Springfield Park, a housing estate built in the early Sixties in West Belfast, made up of both Catholic and Protestant families who lived side by side in harmony.

From the first concept to the final rivet, The Statue of Liberty was the creation of volunteers. Strange to say, no government was involved. This documentary tells the exciting story of who was involved: hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens from all walks of life, even children, gave their small earnings to realize Miss Liberty, first in France and then in the U.S. It took 14 years to consummate.

Examines the plight of homeless children through interviews with more than a dozen youngsters living on the streets of California's Bay Area.

Examines the hectic lifestyles of "fast track" couples, members of the Baby Boom generation whose desire to succeed--at the office, in social circles and through their children's accomplishments--leads to living in a state of chronic stress.

Documents the efforts of a group of American volunteers--including architects, artists, teachers and psychologists--in building and operating a primary school in a poor Tiajuana neighborhood.

Chronicles one season in the life of the Morningside High School basketball team, the defending California state champs, whose school is situated in a crime-ridden L.A. neighborhood.