Ekumenopolis: City Without Limits attempts to build a picture of neoliberal urban growth in Istanbul and shed a light on its environmental and social costs. Istanbul has been changing from an industrial city to a finance and service-centered city, competing with other world cities for investment in the last decades and this has transformed both the urban and social fabric of the city immensely. The documentary brings together a variety of voices by featuring sociologists, economists, architects, social activists and the residents of informal settlements.
The story of the film relates to stories gathered in the Placemaking Europe book “Our City?”. A book that focuses on what it takes to feel at home in cities. The stories from the book can be read here.
In order to bring us together in watching and contemplating the film, we will first start with an introduction by Tuğçe Akbulut and Jeroen Laven at 19:00 CET. Thereafter we are all going to watch the film in places comfortable for us, whilst also sharing pictures of our screening environment on social media with an #inspiringcities tag or just within this event page. As we all finish the movie we will start a Q&A session online together with some special guests! In the Q&A we will relate the story of the film to other stories from Our City? and the current challenges for the city in these days of Corona.
