Better Cities Film Festival collects, curates and presents the very best films on the theme of making better cities, towns, and neighborhoods. (And applause!) And we screen those films to a vast audience around the world through our flagship event (a four-day film festival), and through locally hosted "one night only" screening events in a growing number of ciites and towns. Better Cities Film Fe
stival is produced and presented by First+Main Films. It was originally founded by Joshua Paget in 2013 as the New Urbanism Film Festival. Discussions and decisions about urban planning and design which impact communities are too often limited to the university classroom or city council chambers. The festival was launched with a vision to move that conversation onto the silver screen and into the streets, engaging the broader community in the vital work of placemaking and neighborhood revitalization. During its five-year run in Los Angeles, the festival received over 700 submissions from all over the world, and screened over 200 films, pairing them with experts who helped lead post-film discussions about the local built environment. The New Urbanism Film Festival relaunched as Better Cities Film Festival in 2019, and ran as a virtual event in 2020 during the pandemic. Beginning in 2021, the flagship festival is held each October in Detroit, Michigan. In 2023, Better Cities Film Festival celebrated it's 10th anniversary.
