Announcing the 5-year commitment to bring the Better Cities Film Festival to Durham
Our new partnership promises to deliver ideas for building a better South.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am thrilled to announce that for the first time, the Better Cities Film Festival is coming to the South and has chosen Durham as its prestigious host.
The American Tobacco Campus’ Full Frame Theater on Blackwell Street will host this extraordinary cinematic journey. Mark your calendars for February 9th and 10th to experience the first "Better Cities Film Festival - South” in 2024.
Durham's rich history and vibrant culture make it the perfect backdrop for our festival's mission: to showcase films and cultivate conversations about creating more livable, equitable, and sustainable cities. We are committed to bringing together creative minds, community leaders, and change-makers to foster dialogue and spark innovation for better urban living.
The festival will kick off on Friday night at 8 pm with an opening night marquee event showcasing "The Engine Inside," a compelling documentary that explores the transformative power of bicycles in building a better world. This special screening is ticketed separately and promises to be an inspiring start to the festival.
On Saturday, the festival goes into full swing. We will host a day-long interactive event featuring an immersive set of programming. We will start off with a unique walking tour of Downtown Durham, offering an intimate glimpse into the city's architectural and cultural gems. The day will continue with a three-block session of films, interwoven with panel discussions, all of which are carefully curated to foster engaging dialogue.
Throughout the festival, there will be ample time for thought-provoking discussions, networking, and enjoying local culinary delights during designated lunch and dinner breaks. Our aim is to create an environment that not only entertains but also empowers attendees to become catalysts for change in their own cities.
Limited Tickets are now available. We encourage you to secure your spot early and join a community of individuals passionate about making a difference.
We look forward to welcoming you to Durham for an unforgettable celebration of film and urban innovation. Together, let's envision and work towards better cities for all.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Ralph Plaskett
Executive Director Southern Urbanism
Successful cities know their stories
First+Main Films and the Better Cities Film Festival tell civic stories across America in film with the goal of changing cities. It shows the power of storytelling in urbanism.
ROBERT STEUTEVILLE NOV. 16, 2023 (via CNU Public Square)
Cities and towns in the US have gone through a process of “de-narration,” according to the filmmakers at First+Main Films. Communities have lost historic fabric, the storytelling capacity of local newspapers, generational continuity, and geographically cohesive families over the last five or six decades.
As a result, places have forgotten the stories of how they overcame challenges historically—and how they can do so again. “Why is that a vital part of urbanism? We don’t have the stories to inspire us to rebuild walkable communities,” says First+Main’s Chris Elisara.
As authors James and Deborah Fallows report in their book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America, one of the hallmarks of a revitalizing community is that residents “know their civic story,” Elisara reports.
FIRST+MAIN FILMS ANNOUNCES CALL FOR ENTRIES FOR 2024 BETTER CITIES FILM FESTIVAL in DETROIT
Detroit, MI, December 1, 2023 -- First+Main Films announced today that submissions are open for films to enter the 2024 Better Cities Film Festival. The festival accepts films of any genre and length on place and placemaking, including stories about revitalizing cities, towns, and neighborhoods.
Better Cities Film Festival
By Dawn Morgan Neary Frederick News-Post Oct 31, 2023
In 2013, standup comedian Josh Paget started the New Urbanism Film Festival in Los Angeles. He paired short films about hyper-local issues, such as public art or transportation, with a panel of experts who discussed the community’s needs with the audience after each film screening.
By the second year of the festival, now called the Better Cities Film Festival, it was clear that other cities wanted to use the power of film to help revitalize and improve their hometowns. The BCFF has since moved their own homebase to Detroit, where they just held their 10th annual flagship festival in October.
But communities all over the U.S. continue to invite the BCFF to host screenings in their towns, and this November, it will be Frederick’s turn, thanks to the Downtown Frederick Partnership.
The Frederick program will be 90 minutes and will feature short films from all over the world.
72 Hours talked with festival director Josh Paget and the Downtown Frederick Partnership associate director Leeann Crews ahead of the event.
Can you briefly explain what the Better Cities Film Festival is? (interview continues via link)
FIRST+MAIN FILMS ANNOUNCES THE WINNERS
OF THE 2023 BETTER CITIES FILM FESTIVAL
Detroit, MI, 23rd Oct., 2023 — Today First+Main Films announced the winning films from the 2023 Better Cities Film Festival. The Grand Prize Best Film and Best Short Film award goes to They Came From All Over. The documentary by Oscar-winning director Rayka Zehtabchi is a love letter to family-run small businesses everywhere, capturing the important role they play within local communities. The Best Feature Film award goes to The Engine Inside. Directed by filmmaker Darcy Wittenburg and narrated by broadcast cycling legend, Phil Liggett, the epic global documentary explores the power of the bicycle to change lives and build a better world. The Hero Award goes to The Place Man, directed by Guillermo Bernal, who also wins the Director Debut Award. The Place Man profiles Fred Kent, founder and icon of the global placemaking movement. The Spirit of the Fest Award goes to Arbitrary Lines: The Free Spirit of Caroline co-produced by author, zoning expert, and YIMBY activist M. Nolan Grey, and directed by Tran Hoang Calvin.
Better Cities Film Festival a bright blast of positivity
A traveling showcase of documentaries comes to Petaluma this month
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF Sept. 14, 2023 (via Petaluma Argus Courier)
Described as “an evening of short documentary films that tell inspiring stories about how people have made their cities, towns, and neighborhoods better,” the Better Cities Film Festival is coming to Petulama two times this month. The 90-minute-long shorts collection is presented by Petaluma Urban Chat, a local nonprofit advocating for sustainable solutions to city planning problems.
Each presentation of the Better Cities Film Festival begins with a pre-show social event at 5 p.m., followed by a 5:45 p.m. introduction and the 6 p.m. show. The evening concludes with a Q&A session.
The thought-provoking films employ an array of styles, delving into issues, problems, and possibilities relevant to life in Petaluma today. The shorts are all between 3 and 10 minutes long, telling optimistic stories in which real people take on problem-solving and community planning to tackle matters of housing and transportation, climate adaptation, parks, and public art.
For more information visit UrbanChat.org.
8th annual Better Cities Film Festival screens in Detroit
Unique annual film festival spotlights the world’s most inspiring stories about making cities, towns and neighborhoods better places for everyone.
LAUREN MAYER OCT. 19, 2022 (via CNU Public Square)
First+Main Films will be screening the 2022 Better Cities Film Festival on October 20 - 23 in Detroit, Michigan. The festival curates and exhibits the best films from around the world, all focused on the theme of making cities and towns better places to live, work and play.
The 8th edition of the annual festival will present over 26 films at Cinema Detroit, an independent cinema arthouse theater. Screenings include films of all lengths and genres: features, shorts, documentaries, narratives and animation. Feature-length films selected to screen include: Raised / Razed, which celebrates the life and laments the destruction of two black communities in Virginia and North Carolina; If You Have, by academy award winning director Ben Proudfoot, chronicles the healing efforts of UNICEF particularly during COVID; and Next City, which reflects on the struggles to develop a new city in the Philippines. The heart of the festival is the short film blocks which have been curated into special categories including: Farm to Foodie, Show Me the Money, Architects of Community, and Planning for People. “These new categories examine cities' relationships with food, economies, people, and places,” said Josh Paget, the festival’s director. “The stories of struggle and the innovative ideas born of those struggles are an inspiration and aspiration for any city.”
BETTER CITIES FILM FESTIVAL AND NODEHAUS ANNOUNCE GLOBAL PREMIERE OF ARBITRARY LINES
A FILM EXPLORING “HOW ZONING BROKE THE AMERICAN CITY AND HOW TO FIX IT,” FEATURING M. NOLAN GRAY
Detroit, MI, 18th September, 2023 — Better Cities Film Festival and Nodehaus announce the global premiere of Arbitrary Lines: The Free Spirit of Caroline at the Better Cities Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 8 at 5:30 - 6:30 PM at the Community Arts Auditorium, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI.
Arbitrary Lines is a captivating documentary that paints a vivid portrait of Caroline, a small town nestled in the rural landscapes of Upstate New York. The film presents an intriguing narrative about the tension between traditional zoning laws and the town's unique, free-spirited ethos. Viewers are challenged to consider the impact of zoning laws on the fabric of small-town life and to rethink the arbitrary lines that define our built environments.
FIRST+MAIN FILMS ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF THE 2022 BETTER CITIES FILM FESTIVAL
Detroit, MI, 21 November, 2022 -- Today First+Main Films announced the winning films from the 2022 Better Cities Film Festival. The Grand Prize Best Feature Film award goes to Raised/Razed, written and directed by filmmaker Lorenzo Dickerson and journalist Jordy Yager, is a documentary about the lasting effects of urban renewal through the lens of Vinegar Hill, an African-American neighborhood in Charlottesville,Virginia and the Hayti neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina. The Grand Prize Best Short Film award goes to Ropes in Brown Hands, a documentary by Alexandra Leah Travis about a small Oklahoma town that’s home to one of the nation’s oldest African-American rodeos
FIRST+MAIN FILMS LAUNCHES UN-HABITAT BETTER CITIES FILM FESTIVAL AT THE 11th WORLD URBAN FORUM
Katowice, Poland 22 June, 2022 -- First+Main Films, in partnership with the United Nations agency focused on sustainable urbanization, UN-Habitat, kicked off the UNHabitat Better Cities Film Festival today in Katowice, Poland. Films will screen daily at the Urban Cinema inside the exposition hall of the Eleventh Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11) from 26-30 June 2022.