Leonie Sandercock is an author and film maker and teaches in the School of Community & Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. Her recent books include
Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities (1998); the edited collection
Making the Invisible Visible: a multicultural history of planning (1998); and
Cosmopolis 2: Mongrel Cities of the 21st Century (2003), which won the Davidoff Award of the American Collegiate Schools of Planning in 2005. With Giovanni Attili, she made the award-winning documentary
Where Strangers Become Neighbours (National Film Board of Canada, 2007). Sandercock and Attili‚s book plus DVD package,
Where strangers become neighbours: the integration of immigrants in Vancouver, was published by Springer in 2009.
Leonie has now completed a second documentary with Giovanni Attili,
Finding our Way: beyond Canada's apartheid‚, which looks at relations between First Nations and non-Native Canadians in northern BC. It will be released in Sept 2010 (distributed by Moving Images). For more info, see
here. Sandercock and Attili have also published an edited collection,
Multimedia Explorations in Urban Policy and Planning: beyond the flatlands(Springer June 2010).
Giovanni Attili obtained his master's degree in environmental engineering (summa cum laude) and his PhD from the University of Rome, La Sapienza, in 2003. He has been a researcher in the same Department as well as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Community & Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.
Currently he works as a researcher in the Faculty of Engineering (La Sapienza, Rome) where he teaches Analysis of Urban and Regional Systems. He is recipient of the G.Ferraro Award for the best Urban Planning PhD Thesis in Italy in 2005 as well as the award from Italy's National Institute of Urban Planning (INU), given for his research paper: "The Pigneto: Gentrification processes and new residential dynamics." His research interests are connected with the representation of the city: a concept which requires an interdisciplinary approach to the city itself (intersecting urban planning, visual anthropology and cinema). His attention is focused on the use of "images" as catalyst of social interaction in urban planning processes.
Giovanni has made three documentaries:
Il Pigneto, chosen for screening at Mediterranean Film Festival (2004);
Where strangers become neighbours (with L. Sandercock), which received an Honorable Mention at the Berkeley Video and Film Festival (Oct 2006), and a Special Mention at the International Federation of Housing and Planning film competition (Geneva Sept 2006);
Finding Our Way (with L. Sandercock) which is now distributed by Moving Images.
He is co-author with Leonie Sandercock of the books:
Where strangers become neighbours: the integration of immigrants in Vancouver, Canada (2009),
Multimedia Explorations In Urban Policy And Planning: Beyond The Flatlands (2010).
