The Road To Magnasanti
2017 · 15m · USA
Directed by John Wilson
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, melancholic
A video essay documenting how a SimCity player designed the statistically perfect city — Magnasanti — through a ruthless top-down grid of clustered high-rises, and drawing a direct and disturbing parallel to the ongoing gentrification of New York City, where neighborhoods are losing identity to luxury condos and co-working spaces.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Someone built the perfect SimCity and John Wilson looked at it and said: that's New York. Then he made a 15-minute video essay about it with his shaky camera and his halting voice and somehow he's right. Pre-HBO Wilson at his most casually devastating.
John Wilson (How To with John Wilson) treating a SimCity Reddit achievement as straight-faced urban planning case study, paralleling NYC gentrification — his trademark essayistic instinct in early form. Rooftop Films grant, NYFF selection, real pedigree.
John Wilson again, doing 14-minute urban planning critique through a Reddit-famous SimCity achievement — gentrification as a top-down civic dystopia. NYFF 2017, Rooftop grant. Wilson's voice + a perfect lens.
Festivals
- New York Film Festival 2017
- Rooftop Films 2017
- Museum of the Moving Image First Look Festival 2018