Giorgio has worked his tail off for four years to bring his documentary film to fruition, and now it’s set to debut at the largest doc-film festival in the world!
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of nonfiction cinema. Each spring, Full Frame welcomes filmmakers and film lovers from around the world to historic downtown Durham, North Carolina, for a four-day, morning-to-midnight array of nearly 100 films, as well as discussions, panels, and Southern hospitality. Set within a few city blocks, the intimate festival landscape fosters community and conversation among filmmakers, film professionals, and the public.
I have seen the film, and for the most part, we (me and fam) play a smaller role. As the filming evolved, the story turned more toward the injustice of the government’s post-war housing policy, and the effects on society today. It is a fascinating movie, and I am grateful to have been a part of it.
The Sundance Film Festival released their official selections for the 2018 event in January, and we didn’t make the cut. I’m sure Giorgio was bummed after putting in four years of effort, but he is still optimistic about getting into Tribeca and SXSW:
We had the most fun just shooting the film, so we’ll have good memories regardless – if none of the big festivals come around, we will still have a showing in Carlsbad at some point next year. I’m not sure how much of us will make the final cut, but this was my favorite clip – Kayla being a realtor:
Here are a few blog posts, including the movie trailer:
Robert Shiller, like many of us, realize how housing has taken a dramatic turn from providing basic shelter for most Americans into a game to be exploited by the rich – to the detriment of the less advantaged.
What do Robert Shiller and Jim the Realtor have in common?
We’re going to be in a movie together!
Giorgio confirmed that the documentary film that has been in the works for the last four years will be ready in time to submit for Sundance 2018!
No one is getting their hopes up too high, considering that last year there were over 12,000 films submitted, and they only took about 1% of them. But if nothing else, we will at least have a screening of the movie here.
Here is the trailer one more time for the newcomers:
Cost per Square Foot is a documentary film project about the singular and perverse nature of the American housing economy. Though much has been written and filmed about the 2008 housing collapse, we seem to have failed to ask a fundamental question:
What is it that we are actually building?
This documentary attempts to answer that question. And in the process, it tell a larger story about housing in America that many people don’t know.
In the years since the US housing market became the epicenter of an unprecedented global economic collapse, protests in Baltimore, Ferguson, and Southside Chicago have highlighted the stark disparities of opportunity that define many American cities. These phenomena are not unrelated – they are divergent paths set in motion by postwar housing policy, a feat of social engineering that simultaneously created the world’s largest middle class, by directly subsidizing suburban development, while systematically depriving inner cities of resources and denying huge swaths of the US population the ability to build wealth through homeownership.
This was by design.
Cost per Square Foot is a historical road trip through the American housing landscape, in all its glory and all its blunder. The film invites viewers into a deeper conversation about our housing economy, one that addresses the fundamental issues of segregation, inequality, and financial instability. Through the stories of a retired NYC cop, a quietly socialist war bride, an aspiring Youtube star / realtor, and a young photographer whose photos of the Baltimore riots propel him into the national spotlight, Cost per Square Foot charts a course between the imagined wealth of seemingly endless “neo-taco-mediterranean special” suburban tract homes built atop razed orange groves, and the stark realities of life in many of America’s inner cities.
In the film, Giorgio is pursuing how housing became the critical component of the middle class. The racial injustice is real – agents will tell you that we still see it regularly in the C.C&Rs of older neighborhoods that blacks were forbidden to own there.
Thankfully those covenants have been struck down, and declared invalid. But as you heard in the movie trailer, the damage has been done.
There are other atrocities seen daily that could be stopped, if desired.
But there is no desire within the industry to end the rampant fraud being perpetrated by realtors upon the unsuspecting real estate consumers.
It ranges from the blundering incompetence of not including decent photos and remarks to the deliberate and intentional felony fraud that we see every day.
The lack of transparency fuels the fraud, and the realtor community does nothing to stop it. When was the last time you saw a realtor do a perp walk? Yet there are realtors committing fraud and deceit every day.
The breakdown is with the brokers – they aren’t properly supervising their agents, and I don’t think they have a clue what is really going on.
Short sales that are spooned to insiders who then defraud the bank into agreeing to a below-market price so it can be flipped for tremendous profit – and the MLS is complicit in the fraud by refusing to turn off the DOM meter, which is the convincing evidence that tricks the bank into thinking the property was on the market for months, instead of minutes.
Listings that never get the benefit of being on the open market. Sellers deserve it, agents have agreed to do it in order to be a member of the MLS, but every day you see another ‘sold before processing’.
The ‘re-freshing’ of listings to purposely deceive the buyers into thinking this is a hot new offering. But it’s not – it is a re-hash of an old listing that in most cases, nobody wanted for months.
Listing agents who intentionally high-ball the list price to get the listing. Their guilt is evidenced in the listing period – they insist on 6 to 12 month listings. With a third of the listings selling in the first 10 days, why do you need a 12-month listing? Because the agent knows the list price is too high, and hopes to work down the seller as time goes on.
Are agents experienced, and have proper skills? The industry has done nothing to help educate the public about hiring competent agents. In fact, the brokers want you to hire the least-experienced agents who have the most favorable commission splits to the house.
Yes, buyer beware, blah blah. But real estate consumers don’t do this enough to have ample education or experience in selling and buying homes – that’s why they hire us! But agents prey on consumers, and the industry does nothing to stop it.
Giorgio’s movie is wrapping up – here is the trailer:
Cost per Square Foot is a documentary film project about the singular and perverse nature of the American housing economy. Though much has been written and filmed about the 2008 housing collapse, we seem to have failed to ask a fundamental question:
What is it that we are actually building?
This documentary attempts to answer that question. And in the process, it tell a larger story about housing in America that many people don’t know.
In the years since the US housing market became the epicenter of an unprecedented global economic collapse, protests in Baltimore, Ferguson, and Southside Chicago have highlighted the stark disparities of opportunity that define many American cities. These phenomena are not unrelated – they are divergent paths set in motion by postwar housing policy, a feat of social engineering that simultaneously created the world’s largest middle class, by directly subsidizing suburban development, while systematically depriving inner cities of resources and denying huge swaths of the US population the ability to build wealth through homeownership.
This was by design.
Cost per Square Foot is a historical road trip through the American housing landscape, in all its glory and all its blunder. The film invites viewers into a deeper conversation about our housing economy, one that addresses the fundamental issues of segregation, inequality, and financial instability. Through the stories of a retired NYC cop, a quietly socialist war bride, an aspiring Youtube star / realtor, and a young photographer whose photos of the Baltimore riots propel him into the national spotlight, Cost per Square Foot charts a course between the imagined wealth of seemingly endless “neo-taco-mediterranean special” suburban tract homes built atop razed orange groves, and the stark realities of life in many of America’s inner cities.
There is a tease in here that wifey will make an appearance, but my camera got turned off – hopefully it’ll be in the movie. But she has promised to share a few thoughts on camera here soon.
The producer and director of the documentary film is Giorgio Angelini, who is an architect by trade and filmmaker when he can. Here’s how he will fund the rest of the project:
He might be able to avoid taxation due to unforeseen circumstances. Here is more from the IRS:
The documentary-film production continues, with the crew of four spending two days in town this week. Guy Mossman is the cinematographer – he also did the documentary ‘Buck’ which won at Sundance:
The video shows us trying out WeVideo, which is a mobile app that provides full video production on your phone. It already has 3.5 million customers, and Jostein is committed to bringing it to the realtor community next:
