Where Strangers Become Neighbours

200749 min 59 secFilm: Documentary

Direction: Giovanni Attili

Production: Leonie Sandercock

Script: Leonie Sandercock

This film was made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by a Canada Foundation for Innovation grant which built and equipped the Vancouver Cosmopolis Laboratory in the School of Community & Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.

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Fear, anxiety, even hostility are typical reactions to immigrants in this Age of Migration, in the New World as well as in Europe. How do people develop an everyday capacity to live alongside those perceived as different, strange?

Our story explores this contemporary global social issue by looking at one neighbourhood in the city of Vancouver. Collingwood, a predominantly Anglo-European community until the 1980s, has been transformed by the arrival of large numbers of Asians, Africans and Latin Americans. A neighbourhood that, just 20 years ago was locking its doors, afraid of change, and telling immigrants to go back where they came from, is now a welcoming place for everyone.

How did this happen? How do strangers become neighbours?

Subject categories

  • Cultural Diversity and Multiculturalism > British ColumbiaCultural DiversityDiscrimination
  • Social Issues > Canadian CommunitiesCultural GroupsDiscrimination and StereotypingImmigrant ExperienceSocial Change

Credits

director
Giovanni Attili
editor
Giovanni Attili
producer
Leonie Sandercock
writer
Leonie Sandercock
music
Gianluca Misiti
director of photography
Giovanni Attili
still photography
Giovanni Attili
research
Leonie Sandercock
Giovanni Attili
research assistance
Sam Beresky
Samara Brock
Alexsandra Brzozowski
Elise Finnigan
Karime Hassan
Arti Khanderia
Ian Marcuse
Lisa Moffatt
Dara Parker
Mark Riesmeyer
Juan Solorzano
Justine Starke
Bev Suderman
Danyta Welch
Heather Willard
Karen Wong