Another Tale of Two Cities
Michelle Gales
2003 - 95 min - Digital vidéo - Couleur et Noir & Blanc - France, États-Unis

In Britain, inner-city is another word for ghetto. In France, the disadvantaged are generally relegated to the suburbs. For the past hundred years, Paris and London have been held up as two contrasting models of urban development : on the one hand, the densely-inhabited, centrally-regulated city with major public projects ; on the other, the low density, laissez faire development of independent boroughs in separate commercial, industrial and residential zones, with sought-after residential areas on the outskirts. And yet in both these contexts, we hear that the town centre is back in fashion. I have taken as examples the Faubourg St Antoine, where I have lived for 25 years, and Spitalfields-Whitechapel, where local associations have been active for as many years trying to resist property speculation aggravated by their proximity to the financial district, the City.
Inspired by the three chapters which make up Dickens1 novel, "Another Tale of Two Cities", I wanted to record impressions and eyewitness accounts of these two neighbourhoods in transition.