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City Planning (Ages 15-17)

City Planning (Ages 15-17)

Discover what goes into urban planning with this selection of films that attempt to balance progress with the preservation of green spaces, as well as ways to leave a minimum impact on the environment.

Pour visionner cette sélection en français, cliquez ici.

Films in This Playlist Include
Saga City
Radiant City
Sapporo - Planned Growth
A Hothouse 3 - Prairie Story

  • Saga City
    2011|16 min

    This animated short tackles the twin issues of urban planning and climate change. Set in the imaginary city of Colvert, the film highlights the fact that the way a community is shaped and organized is an important factor in determining its energy consumption, and thus the quantity of greenhouse gases it releases into the atmosphere. Saga City is narrated by Colm Feore and directed by Luc Chamberland.

    Produced with the assistance of the National Film Board of Canada's Filmmaker Assistance Program.

  • Radiant City
    2006|1 h 25 min

    In this feature length film Gary Burns, Canada's king of surreal comedy, joins journalist Jim Brown on an outing to the suburbs. Venturing into territory both familiar and foreign, they turn the documentary genre inside out, crafting a vivid account of life in The Late Suburban Age.

  • Sapporo - Planned Growth
    1974|56 min

    This feature documentary zooms in on the city of Sapporo, on the Island of Hokkaïdo in southern Japan. In contrast to the unplanned sprawl of neighbouring industrialized cities, Sapporo appears to be one of the best-planned large cities in the world, combining growth and technology with town planning and the preservation of green spaces.

  • A Prairie Story
    2006|1 min

    In this short animation film a prairie landscape undergoes a metamorphosis from rural idyll to over-urbanized dystopia. Director Anne Koizumi laments the changing face of her hometown of Calgary in this critique of the bacteria-like spread of suburbia and exurbia.

    Produced as part of the third edition of the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship.