Crisis Mirror screening: Ecumenopolis

Crisis Mirror has a pleasure to invite you to the screening of Imre Azem’s documentary Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits (2011) on Thursday, Feb 13, at Støberiet (Blågårdsplads 3), starting at 20.00.

The film delves into the worldwide process of neoliberal urbanization through a particular case study. It depicts the rapid transformation of Istanbul from a reasonable sized industrial city into a finance and consumption-centered megalopolis that has dramatically exceeded its environmental, economic and population limits.

During the process the city has also lost its social cohesion as the rich isolate themselves in gated communities, while the poor are pushed into social housing projects on the periphery of the city. Skyscrapers, highways and shopping malls that cover the ruins of demolished working class neighborhoods are landmarks of the new spatial dynamics that are defined by the neoliberal policies of the city administrators. But what does this development eventually serve: financial gain or people’s needs?

The film aims for holistic approach to its topic in conversation with experts, academics, writers, investors, city-dwellers, and community leaders. It does not just record the transformation of Istanbul as such, but seeks also to grasp the more general dynamics behind it. By doing this it provides an account that might help us to understand the current urbanization processes that shape also our own lifeworlds.

-CrisisMirror