Film-Making as Urban Research

Urban Political Podcast

with Nitin Bathla, Sandra Jasper, and Tino Buchholz

Emerging film-makers and urban researchers Nitin Bathla, Sandra Jasper, and Tino Buchholz speak about their avenues into film-production, why film amounts to a vital medium for urban research, and what it would mean to enhance its role in urban studies. This episode is also full of urban film inspirations and recommendations!

Guests:

Nitin Bathla is an architect, artist, and educator currently pursuing Doctoral Studies at ETH Zurich. His work focuses on labor, political ecology, and housing in the extended urbanization of Delhi. Aside from academic writing, Nitin works on films, socially engaged art and design projects. www.nitinbathla.com

Nitin's debut film with Klearjos Eduardo Papanicoloau, Not Just Roads (2020) is an ethnographic documentary film that narrates the story of a massive urban transformation underway in India. You can find the trailers, synopsis, posters and stills of the film at - www.notjustroadsfilm.com

Sandra Jasper is Junior Professor for the Geography of Gender in Human-Environment-Systems at the Department of Geography, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 2015, she received her PhD in Geography from University College London. Before joining HU Berlin in 2020, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge. She is co-editor of The Botanical City (2020, with Matthew Gandy) and co-author and co-producer of the documentary film Natura Urbana: The Brachen of Berlin (2017, UK/Germany, 72 mins). She is currently completing her first monograph on the experimental spaces of West Berlin for which she received a Graham Foundation grant. Natura Urbana was funded under the European Research Council Advanced Grant entitled Rethinking Urban Nature. Webpage: https://www.rethinkingurbannature.org/

University website: https://www.geographie.hu-berlin.de/de/abteilungen/geographie-der-geschlechterverhaeltnisse-in-mensch-umwelt-systemen-j/team/current-people/jasper

Tino Buchholz holds a Master in Urban Planning from the University of Dortmund (Germany) and a PhD from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). Focused on the sociology of urban conflict & urban movements he looks at forms of life as forms of housing: with respect to property-led urbanization, political justice, community formation and migration. His publications target the legitimacy of legal housing standards in Western & Eastern Europe; social housing, squatting, property guardianship and critical urban theory. Expanding the scope of urban sociology he works as producer and director at TUNi productions, urban research & documentary film.

http://www.tuniproductions.com/ https://vimeo.com/ondemand/298212 https://rug.academia.edu/tinobuchholz

Recommendations:

UCL Urban film recommendations: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/urban-lab/news/2020/mar/watch-urban-lab-films-available-stream-home

UrbanEye Film Festival in Bucharest: https://urbaneye.ro/en/

from Nitin:

The Seven Sisters Indoor Market (2016) by Kleajos Eduardo Papanicolaou and Marios Kleftakis. https://www.sevensistersmarketfilm.com/ Eeb Allay Ooo (2019) Prateek Vats. https://thewire.in/film/eeb-allay-ooo-film-review Behemoth (2015) Zhao Liang. https://grasshopperfilm.com/film/behemoth/ Alpi (2011) Armin Linke. http://www.arminlinke.com/alpi/ Petropolis (2009) Peter Mettler. https://www.petermettler.com/petropolis

Bonus classic recommendation - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (1972). https://vimeo.com/22488225

from Sandra:

Terence Davies, Of Time and the City (2008) Slátan Dudow, Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt? (1932) Agnès Varda, The Gleaners and I (2000) Shaunak Sen, Cities of Sleep (2015) Pedro Ruiz, Havana, from on high (2018)

from Tino:

Mark Saunders http://www.spectacle.co.uk/projects.php

Lorenzo Tripodi http://oginoknauss.org/about