TOWARD A JUST METROPOLIS: From Crises to Possibilities

The Just Metropolis is proud to offer four films as part of the regular conference programming. One is part of our featured art and culture celebration at the Mission Cultural Center on Friday night, June 18th.

The other three are being show during the classroom sessions at UC Berkeley on Friday, June 18th and Saturday, June 19th, during the day.

Due to space constraints, we can not sell tickets to the film events separately. They can only be seen by registering for the conference.

Feature Film : A Village Called Versailles. Friday Night, Mission Cultural center

In a New Orleans neighborhood called Versailles, a tight-knit group of Vietnamese Americans overcame obstacles to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, only to have their homes threatened by a new government-imposed toxic landfill. A VILLAGE CALLED VERSAILLES is the empowering story of how the Versailles people, who have already suffered so much in their lifetime, turn a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance for a better future.

We are proud to announce a new addition to our film program: the screening of the documentary  “A Village Called Versailles,” followed by a discussion with Uyen Le, a community organizer and city planner who worked with the Vietnamese American community featured in this documentary in their fight to return and rebuild, and in their fight to keep the city for building a landfill next to their village. This documentary is extremely relevant to this conference not only for its implications for city planning, democracy, and environmental justice; it becomes even more relevant in light of the current environmental disaster caused by the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens, once more, these communities, and that will put to test their organizational capacity in the upcoming fight to clean their waters.

FILM SCREENING, FOLLOWED BY DISCUSSION: “Land of Opportunity,” 2010, New Orleans. Luisa Dantas, Jolu Productions http://joluproductions.com/

Friday Lunch Hour, UC Berkeley

Land Of Opportunity is a groundbreaking multi-platform documentary project that tells the stories of a diverse group of people as they struggle to rebuild post-catastrophe New Orleans, one of Louisiana's most emblematic cities. From the urban planner to the immigrant worker to the public housing resident, our protagonists hail from different walks of life but share a stake in the rebirth of this beloved city. Through their eyes, we experience the dramatic ups and downs of a massive and unprecedented urban reconstruction process. This project encompasses a character-based feature-length film for broadcast and a comprehensive interactive website featuring content to be delivered across several platforms including streaming media and portable devices.

As the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, communities all over the world are struggling to recover from disaster, whether economic, natural or man-made. For the past four and a half years, Producer/Director Luisa Dantas and her team have documented the ongoing reconstruction of New Orleans, amassing over 1500 hours of exclusive video footage. This footage has a wide range of applications and has already been employed in academic research, grassroots organizing, and workforce training workshops. Our material has also been featured in art exhibits and several other media projects highlighting post-Katrina life in the Gulf Coast.

FILM SCREENING, FOLLOWED BY DISCUSSION: Rethinking Growth, Jennifer Malloy, 2010.

Saturday Lunch Hour, UC Berkeley This film has closed captioning.

We are driven by a growth paradigm that guides land use and development decisions.  If this paradigm no longer holds true what do we have to replace it?  There are miles of bridges, roads, power lines, sewer systems, and buildings in a shrinking city.  Is it sustainably progressive or just romantically regressive to green over our built environment?  How can we investigate paradigmatic examples of engaging the city that are not fixed but strategically flexible?  Can we use existing infrastructure - physically and conceptually - in new and creative ways?  Can we advocate for a creative society - rather than a creative economy - that does not dislocate us from one another?  

St. Louis, Buffalo, Youngstown, Cleveland, Detroit ... these hollowed out spaces no longer reflect nor reveal a demand for growth.  Do we dismantle them?  Sustain them? Adopt them for other uses?  Continue to forget about them?  How can we intervene in creative, playful, and thought-provoking ways to reconfigure meaning and value as well as perceptions of forgotten spaces and people?  How can we use temporary interventions to investigate possible uses of space as well as the kinds of social interactions and shared knowledge generated within them?  

Rethinking growth means rethinking land use development decisions.  If economic development is no longer a viable option for certain areas then land use decisions may strategically shift to citizens.  If this happens, how can we facilitate decision-making that is informed and equitable to ensure these decisions circulate into related initiatives?  In testing the potentials of forgotten spaces we have the opportunity to consider the wider spatial configurations and spatial inequalities in our city.  We can begin to question and develop our basic rights to the city and demand quality of life benefits that include jobs, material wealth, health, and education for all.  The strategical flexibility needed to carry out a reflexive informed citizenry suggests the need for a critical urban pedagogy that instructs people on the ways of an urban locale and on the ways of being in that locale.

FILM SCREENING, with discussion: The New Metropolis

Saturday Afternoon, UC Berkeley

Using compelling, personal stories to highlight issues faced by first-ring suburbs and communities undergoing change, The New Metropolis is a two-part documentary series that explores the challenges our older suburbs now face, and points towards solutions for their revitalization. Each episode is 30 minutes in length. Episode 1 A Crack in the Pavement explores the challenges faced by first-ring suburbs and the response of the community. Episode 2, The New Neighbors  describes how one town created a vibrant, intentionally integrated community. The New Metropolis is based on a powerful vision of democracy: that ordinary citizens can catalyze social movements for fairness, opportunity, and equitable development.  More information can be found at http://thenewmetropolis.com/.