Skip to content
Accessibility
Housing and Public Housing (30)
-
Co-op Housing: The Best Move We Ever MadeLaura Sky 1975 22 minThe film explores the dimensions of the housing crisis in Canada, the definition of cooperative housing, and its possibilities as described by some of the people who are living in such dwellings today. Here, housing is owned and operated by people as users, not as investors. The film emphasizes an alternative in housing: security of tenure and mutual aid as the owner-families have come to value them. -
Co-op Housing: Getting It TogetherLaura Sky 1975 23 minPeople, housing, funds and expertise: getting them together isn't easy, but it can be done. The film deals with the planning and procedures involved in setting up a co-op, whether that means building one, or buying and rehabilitating existing housing. People living in different kinds of co-ops talk about them, and how they function.
-
Canadian Screen Magazine No. 81946 7 minExercise Musk-Ox Finishes Three-Month Arctic Trek: A fifty-man team completes its research expedition to the Arctic. War-born Seaweed Industry Assures Peacetime Prosperity: In Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Irish moss is harvested and processed for use in the manufacture of a variety of products. Canada's Flying Wing Passes Flight Tests: Tests on the flying wing--an aircraft without motor or tail--are conducted in Ottawa by the National Research Council. Unique Design for Living Solves Housing Shortage: Veterans who are University of Saskatchewan students, and their families, live in barracks that have been converted into community apartments.
-
Design Innovations for Canadian SettlementsBruce Mackay 1976 17 minA 1976 documentary about innovative housing and community design as a way to conserve energy. Two planned mining towns, one in Quebec and another in Manitoba, are examined, as well as solar-heated homes in Ontario and Prince Edward Island. This film was produced by the NFB for the Canadian Habitat Secretariat, Urban Affairs.
-
The Downtown ProjectIsabelle Longtin 2011 52 minJust a stone’s throw from downtown Montreal is the largest social housing complex in Quebec. Built in 1959 where the red-light district used to be, Les Habitations Jeanne-Mance have retained something of the area’s seedy reputation for poverty, prostitution, drugs and violence. But who really knows the projects and the people who live there? Delving beneath the prejudices and stereotypes, director Isabelle Longtin ventured inside the buildings and met the residents. The result is The Downtown Project, a documentary that reveals a complex multi-ethnic reality made up of compelling personal stories and social movements.
-
Eye Witness No. 401952 11 minThe Eye Witness series is a collection of short documentaries featuring Canadian news stories from the 1940s and '50s. This segment includes Prairie Harbour: The Port of Flowing Grain, a look at the lakehead cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, funnelling centres for western grain on its way to world markets. In Modern Miracle: Surgery is Safe, the appendectomy of patient Henry Brown demonstrates the advances in modern medicine. Co-Op Carpenters: Home-Made Community illustrates the principles behind the cooperative housing program for veterans in Carleton Heights near Ottawa.
-
Farewell Oak StreetGrant McLean 1953 17 minThis documentary presents a before-and-after picture of people in a large-scale public housing project in Toronto. Due to a housing shortage, they were forced to live in squalid, dingy flats and ramshackle dwellings on a crowded street in Regent Park North; now they have access to new, modern housing developments designed to offer them privacy, light and space.
-
The Federal Court HearingAlanis Obomsawin 2012 19 minAmid a severe housing crisis that made international headlines in 2011, the federal government imposed third-party management on the Attawapiskat First Nation. In response, the First Nation’s leadership filed a challenge in federal court, claiming the appointment was unreasonable, contrary to law and harmful to community members. Alanis Obomsawin documents the remarkable judicial review that ensued in April 2012 in this companion work to her feature documentary The People of the Kattawapiskak River.
-
Home Feeling: Struggle for a CommunityJennifer Hodge & Roger McTair 1983 57 minThis feature documentary takes us to the heart of the Jane-Finch "Corridor" in the early 1980s. Covering six square blocks in Toronto's North York, the area readily evokes images of vandalism, high-density subsidized housing, racial tension, despair and crime. By focusing on the lives of several of the residents, many of them black or members of other visible minorities, the film provides a powerful view of a community that, contrary to its popular image, is working towards a more positive future.
-
Halifax Neighbourhood Center ProjectRex Tasker 1967 33 minShows a campaign launched in Halifax in 1967 to probe the core of poverty in that city--low incomes, ill health and inadequate housing affect more than twelve thousand people in the central area. The project combines the efforts of local agencies with those of government agencies to alleviate these conditions.
-
Universe Within - OttawaKaterina Cizek 2015 2 minCathy, who lives on her rural property outside St. John’s NFLD, has an aging mother who lives in Ottawa. Instead of sending her to a home, Cathy had several wifi connected sensors installed in her mum’s home and is able to keep tabs on her mother.
-
Universe Within - TokyoKaterina Cizek 2015 3 minAs Yoko loses control of her body to Lou Gerrig's Disease, she prepares for her future by learning to operate (through eyeblinking) a "proxy" robot that goes out into the world for her, when she can no longer leave her Tokyo apartment.
-
Universe Within - New York CityKaterina Cizek 2015 2 minFor 22 years inside a federal prison, Alvin had no access to a computer or the internet. So when he was released last year, he had decades worth of digital learning to catch up on: google, email, facebook and twitter. And now, through facebook, he has found his long lost son.
-
Les Habitations Jeanne-ManceEugene Boyko 1963 13 minOverpopulation, slum housing, widespread illness and criminal behaviour were the norm. Now Montréal, collaborating with the federal and provincial governments in its first slum redevelopment project, has replaced this with clean, low-density housing--Les Habitations Jeanne-Mance.
-
Universe Within - New York City - HurricaneKaterina Cizek 2015 3 minIn the absence of timely government emergency response to the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, one woman turns to google docs to organize the relief efforts of volunteers going door-to-door, floor-by-floor in the highrises of south Brooklyn, to aid Russian Jewish Seniors trapped in their own homes.
-
"I Don't Think It's Meant for Us ..."Kathleen Shannon 1971 32 minTenants of public housing express some of their concerns and perceptions of the public housing positions of federal, provincial and municipal levels of government who make and administer policies that affect their lives. Controversial viewpoints, which will be useful in constructive discussion, are expressed.
-
Invisible CityHubert Davis 2009 1 h 15 minInvisible City is a moving story of two boys from Regent Park crossing into adulthood – their mothers and mentors rooting for them to succeed; their environment and social pressures tempting them to make poor choices. Turning his camera on the often ignored inner city, Academy-award nominated director Hubert Davis sensitively depicts the disconnection of urban poverty and race from the mainstream.
-
Little BurgundyBonnie Sherr Klein & Maurice Bulbulian 1969 30 minWhen an old area of a city is to be demolished to make way for a new low-rental housing development, is there anything that the residents can do to protect their own interests? This film, produced in 1968, airs such a situation in the Little Burgundy district of Montréal. It shows how citizens organized themselves into a committee that made effective representations to City Hall and influenced the housing policy.
-
Lewis Mumford on the City, Part 5: The City as Man's HomeMogens Gander , Jacques Giraldeau , … 1963 27 minThis short documentary is part of a series hosted by American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic Lewis Mumford, who was particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture. In this episode, Mumford meditates on the “ugly and savagely debased surroundings” of the industrial cities that sprung up in formerly empty rural areas during the Industrial Revolution. Mumford juxtaposes the squalor of the working poor with the relative safety and security of the wealthy. He asks what can be done to address “the spirit of social hopelessness” that thrives in the overcrowded slums where a city’s poorest residents live.
-
Legault's PlaceSuzanne Angel 1964 10 minThis short film tells the story of what happens when the world around you changes but you remain the same. Legault is an elderly gentleman whose aging cabin now sits in a new suburb of Montreal. No longer surrounded by fields and woods, it has become an eyesore in a newly developing neighbourhood. A warm and humorous story about learning to change with the times.
-
Montréal - The Neighborhood RevivedMichel Régnier 1974 56 minThis full-length documentary from the Challenge for Change program addresses housing issues affecting Montreal in the mid-1970s. As the city is restoring older apartments through direct action and government subsidies, new, low-rent housing is being integrated into old neighborhoods.
-
The People of the Kattawapiskak River - Six Months LaterAlanis Obomsawin 2012 6 minSix months following the events of her documentary The People of the Kattawapiskak River, Alanis Obomsawin returns to the Cree community of Attawapiskat in northern Ontario, whose severe housing crisis in 2011 made international headlines. While the public outcry resulted in some short-term relief for the most in need, Obomsawin reveals that the crisis persists in the isolated First Nation. Relief homes sent to the community are not equipped to deal with the harsh winter, as overcrowding and homelessness remain daily realities. Despite their ordeals, the residents of Attawapiskat remain strong, united in love and a belief that a better future must be achieved.
-
The People of the Kattawapiskak River - Katawapiskak Sipiwi Ininiwak (Cree Version)Alanis Obomsawin 2013 50 minThe people of the Attawapiskat First Nation, a Cree community in northern Ontario, were thrust into the national spotlight in 2012 when the impoverished living conditions on their reserve became an issue of national debate. With The People of the Kattawapiskak River, Abenaki director Alanis Obomsawin quietly attends as community members tell their own story, shedding light on a history of dispossession and official indifference. “Obomsawin’s main objective is to make us see the people of Attawapiskat differently,” said Robert Everett-Green in The Globe & Mail. “The emphasis, ultimately, is not so much on looking as on listening—the first stage in changing the conversation, or in making one possible.” Winner of the 2013 Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary, the film is part of a cycle of films that Obomsawin has made on children’s welfare and rights.
-
The People of the Kattawapiskak RiverAlanis Obomsawin 2012 50 minThe people of the Attawapiskat First Nation, a Cree community in northern Ontario, were thrust into the national spotlight in 2012 when the impoverished living conditions on their reserve became an issue of national debate. With The People of the Kattawapiskak River, Abenaki director Alanis Obomsawin quietly attends as community members tell their own story, shedding light on a history of dispossession and official indifference. “Obomsawin’s main objective is to make us see the people of Attawapiskat differently,” said Robert Everett-Green in The Globe & Mail. “The emphasis, ultimately, is not so much on looking as on listening—the first stage in changing the conversation, or in making one possible.” Winner of the 2013 Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary, the film is part of a cycle of films that Obomsawin has made on children’s welfare and rights.
-
Redevelopment in Windsor - The First Step1964 13 minThis film shows how the city of Windsor, Ontario, solved the need for the redevelopment of old sections of the city by employing the available resources of the provincial and federal governments. A first low-rental housing project, Glengarry Court, was undertaken and completed, and plans were extended to include the redevelopment of a choice riverfront area.
-
A Short History of the Highrise, Part One: MudKaterina Cizek 2013 3 minIn the first installment, "Mud" traces the historical roots of the residential highrise, from the biblical Tower of Babel to the tenement buildings of New York. The film is narrated by singer-songwriter Feist, and is directed by Katerina Cizek in collaboration with the New York Times.
-
A Short History of the Highrise, Part Four: HomeKaterina Cizek 2013 4 minIn the final installment, "Home" consists of images from New York Times readers, who submitted personal pictures of their lives in high-rises from around the world. Montreal musician Patrick Watson wrote the music for the film.
-
A Short History of the Highrise, Part Three: GlassKaterina Cizek 2013 3 minIn the third installment, "Glass" examines the recent proliferation of luxury condos and the growing segregation between the rich and poor. The film is narrated by the singer-songwriter of Cold Specks, and is directed by Katerina Cizek in collaboration with the New York Times.
-
A Short History of the Highrise, Part Two: ConcreteKaterina Cizek 2013 6 minIn the second installment, "Concrete" explores how, in New York City and globally, residential high-rises and public housing attempted to foster social equality in the 20th century. The film is narrated and directed by Katerina Cizek in collaboration with the New York Times.
-
Unarmed VersesCharles Officer 2016 1 h 25 minThis feature documentary presents a thoughtful and vivid portrait of a community facing imposed relocation. At the centre of the story is a remarkably astute and luminous 12-year-old black girl whose poignant observations about life, the soul, and the power of art give voice to those rarely heard in society. Unarmed Verses is a cinematic rendering of our universal need for self-expression and belonging.
