ABOUT PUSH
Landlords without faces. Apartments without renters. A documentary exploring the new, unlivable city.
Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities worldwide. Incomes are not. The working and middle classes are getting pushed out of cities, while financial powerhouses use housing as a place to park money.
PUSH is a new documentary from award-winning director Fredrik Gertten, investigating why we can’t afford to live in our own cities anymore. We follow UN Special Rapporteur on Housing, Leilani Farha, on her quest to understand who’s getting squeezed, who’s getting rich and why housing has become one of today’s most pressing world issues?
The film had its World Premiere at CPH:DOX, 2019, where it won the coveted Audience Award.
Do you want to organize your own screening of PUSH? Contact us at film@wgfilm.com and we’ll help you get there.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
PUSH is my journey to understand why life in our cities is getting so unaffordable. For two years I filmed with Leilani Farha, and we had daily Whatsapp chats discussing the issue. Early on it was clear that we were lacking a language to describe the ongoing development. Words like gentrification are not sharp enough to describe the issue. It’s a global disease when homes are turned into assets in a financial game.
The gentrification talk creates a divide. Blaming a hip coffee shop or an art gallery for pushing out the poor is just silly. There are other - much stronger forces in action. If citizens and politicians want to push back the invasion of speculative money from hedge funds and criminals, we need a deeper understanding.
My hope is that PUSH will form a platform for better conversation. That people in countries around the world realise that the development in their town is not unique. There’s a global pattern, a business model repeated over and over again. A new kind of landlord, a hedge fund whose customers are not the tenants but the investors. PUSH is now out on a global journey, at cinemas and festivals. Everywhere, I meet people who through the film now feel less lonely. Just more angry.
Listen to our podcast #PUSHBACK Talks
PRESS KIT
PRODUCTION INFO
Title: PUSH
Genre: Documentary
Release Year: 2019
Length: 92 mins
CREDITS
Director: Fredrik Gertten
Producer: Margarete Jangård (WG Film)
Cinematography: Janice d’Avila, Iris Ng
Editor: Erik Wall Bäfving
Music: Florencia Di Concilio
Sound Design: Martin Hennel
Color Grading: Michael Cavanagh
Co-Producer (Canada): Cave7, Jamie Kastner and Laura Baron Kastner
In Co-Production With: SVT – Axel Arnö & Charlotte Gry Madsen, Film i Skåne - Lisa Nyed, ZDF / ARTE – Kathrin Brinkmann & Martin Pieper, Yle – Jenny Westergård, NRK – Fredrik Færden, TVO – Jane Jankovic
With Support From: Swedish Film Institute, Juan Pablo Libossart, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Karolina Lidin, Bertha Foundation, Omidyar Network, City of Malmö, Creative Europe - MEDIA programme of the European Union
FESTIVALS
In selection: CPH:DOX 2019, Hot Docs 2019, DOXA 2019, Docs Against Gravity 2019, Dok.fest Munich 2019, DocsBarcelona 2019, Beat Film Festival 2019, Doc/Fest Sheffield 2019, Biografilm Festival 2019, DocFest Ireland 2019, New Zealand International Film Festival 2019, IDFA 2019, San Francisco Green Film Festival 2019, DocsMX 2019, FIPADOC 2020, ZagrebDox 2020, One World 2020 and many more!
AWARDS
CPH:DOX 2019, Audience Award
DocsBarcelona 2019, Reteena Young Jury Award
San Francisco Green Film Festival 2019, Best Feature Award
Freedom Film Fest 2019, Justin Louis Award for Best Documentary
Nüremberg Human Rights Film Festival 2019, Open Eyes Youth Jury Award
DocsMX 2019, Premio Del Jurado Global Docs Jury Award
Life After Oil Film Festival 2019, Special Mention
SIMA 2020 Award for Best Documentary
SIMA 2020 Jury Price for Lens to Action (Documentary Feature)
PRESS
“Compelling ... Engaging”
- Sight & Sound Magazine”Must see”
-Evening Standard“A whirlwind tour of rocketing rents and personal tragedy”
- Oliver Wainwright, architecture and design critic for The Guardian“A gripping new film about how global financing is fuelling the housing crisis and making cities unaffordable to live in.” - Patrick Butler, The Guardian
“Fredrik Gertten’s lively, approachable documentary on the global housing crisis should leave audiences feeling engaged, enraged and with plenty to discuss afterwards...“ - Allan Hunter, Screen Daily
“Fredrik Gertten’s rousing investigation into the global housing crisis plays like a real-world conspiracy thriller, with an inspiring hero at its heart.” - Demetrios Matheou, Little White Lies