Terrain Vague is a 16mm photo-roman, based on the images and accompanying log of a fictional female researcher who, over the summer of 2016, chronicles the development of a new private, university-based innovation centre from the shell of a former colour and coatings laboratory in a poor and working class South-West Philadelphia neighbourhood--an industrial hub that shuttered in the wake of the crisis of 2008.

In her investigations into the history of the site and its environs, her peregrinations around the city (including a stop at the fateful 2016 Democratic National Convention), and her interactions with a beleaguered real estate agent, the researcher reflects on the cycles of creative destruction that permanently transform the urban landscape, providing openings for new schemes and entrepreneurial science fictions of development.

Dir. Edward Kihn - 47min - 2020 - USA

"Black and white photographs on 16mm film accompanied by a female voiceover lead the audience through a dystopian fantasy with a caustic commentary on gentrification and class inequality in American cities." - Ji.hlava