by Doerte U. Engelkes

Script & Camera: Doerte U. Engelkes
Sound: Anna Seegers-Krueckeberg
Editing: Abbas Yousefpour
Location: Jurong West, Singapore
Language: english
Production: MPI MMG 2014

By 2050, an estimated 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities. Through internal and international migration urban population will increasingly become more diverse ethnically, religiously, linguistically and in terms of legal status.
We know little about these experiences of migration-driven diversification, urban space and everyday contacts.
How do these processes influence social relations? Do they shape new patterns of coexistence or cause new conflicts?
The films of the GlobaldiverCities Trilogy transform these research questions into visual narrations.
The documentaries portray people and places in three neighborhoods in Singapore, New York und Johannesburg.

This film features the residential area of Jurong West at the edge of Singapore where many people from all over Asia live and meet. The focus is on living with diversity in public spaces: a small path between huge high rises, a food hawker as the central meeting point of the neighborhood and places around the homes of the protagonists.
Mrs. Heng and her husband come to the path to join a small flea market every Sunday.
Raj is spending the whole day roaming around the food hawker where he meets many friends and strangers.
Ramdass arrived in Singapore some years ago and chose to live in a neighboring dormitory for male working migrants
and Ofelia who spends most of her time with her friends from the Philippines.