September 29, 2017
For Immediate Release
Urbanism Filmmaking Challenge Generates Buzz for Urban Projects Under Way in L.A.
The 5th Annual New Urbanism Film Festival Kicks Off with a Week-long Urbanism Filmmaking Challenge, Pairing Urban Leaders and Local Filmmakers
LOS ANGELES–On October 12 top urban thinkers and community leaders will kick off the 5th annual New Urbanism Film Festival with an evening of TED-style presentations on the changes taking place across L.A.’s dynamic urban landscape. Filmmakers are invited to attend and participate in the Urbanism Filmmaking Challenge. Filmmakers who accept the challenge choose who they’d like to work with in a fun urbanism/filmmaking atmosphere and have one week to produce a 3-5 minute film.
“We were inspired to create this event because L.A. is changing so fast and yet the feature-length documentaries we were seeing submitted to the festival were out of date by 2-3 years. That’s the nature of filmmaking, we get it. We created this challenge to get an up-to-date, if a bit unpolished, version of the changes happening in Los Angeles,” said Festival Director Josh Paget.
Presenters, who are invited by the festival board, aid the filmmakers in providing historical photos, arranging interviews with experts, and recommending locations to shoot. Topics touch on a variety of themes of urban life, from transportation, housing and homelessness to street art, park design, water issues, and much more. Relevant and timely, these films have helped bring awareness to local projects while furthering the dialogue around solutions to urban problems on a broader scale. The films resulting from this competition have become some of the most salient among the festival’s archive, and are screened in cities around the world, including Seattle, Detroit, and Toronto.
This year the event is being hosted by Rita House, a historic costume shop in Hollywood that has recently been restored and is seeking historic designation. The house was originally a creative coworking space decades before the current trend.
The New Urbanism Film Festival explores many elements of urban planning: architecture, bicycling, busses, historic preservation, street art, subways, and walkability. The effects of new urbanism can be seen in cities worldwide where communities have found greater ways to connect and thrive by way of the design of a park, square, the streets and other public spaces.
Films produced for the Challenge will premiere at the ACME Theater at October 22 at 7:30 p.m. Awards will take place immediately following. First place will receive $300 and registration with InkTip, second and third $50.
More details at https://newurbanismfilmfestival.com/urbanism-filmmaking-challenge/.
The 2017 New Urbanism Film Festival runs October 19-22 at the ACME Theater:
135 N La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
For more information, interviews and media requests, please contact:
Josh Paget – Festival Director, Co-founder, Producer
(626) 888-2151
Better Cities Film Festival 