Past Film/Video | Documentaries

City Hall

(Frederick Wiseman, 2020)

Followed by a conversation with the filmmaker and Mayor Martin Walsh

Stream | Columbus Premiere

A group of Boston city officials stand at a podium

Catch the Columbus premiere of City Hall, the latest project by legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. The film captures the efforts of Boston city government to provide essential public services while revealing the ways its policies address racial justice, affordable housing, climate action, and more.

Although city government touches almost every aspect of our daily lives—taking care of sanitation and safety—it can be easy to take for granted the many activities necessary to support a local population: veterans affairs; parks and recreation maintenance; record keeping of birth, marriage, and death.

One of our country’s greatest living filmmakers and the force behind more than five decades of documentaries that investigate how our institutions work, Wiseman explains that “I made City Hall to illustrate why government is necessary for people to successfully live together. City Hall shows a city government offering a wide variety of important and necessary services to a major American city whose population exemplifies the history of diversity of America. The Boston city government is designed and strives to offer these services in a manner consistent with the Constitution and democratic norms. Boston’s city government is the opposite of what Trump stands for.”

Wiseman visited the Wex in 2006 for a retrospective of his work and received an Honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016. (275 mins., digital video)

Keep watching after the film for a conversation between Wiseman and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh.

More about the film

A group of Boston city officials stand at a podium

Image courtesy Zipporah Films

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh speaks at a podium along side police officers and city officials

Image courtesy Zipporah Films

The front of a 1970s era city building with brutalist concrete ornamentation in daylight

Image courtesy Zipporah Films

An elderly woman in military garb in front of a wall of officer photos

Image courtesy Zipporah Films

A woman in a head covering speaks in a town meeting

Image courtesy Zipporah Films

MADE POSSIBLE BY
Greater Columbus Arts Council
American Electric Power Foundation
L Brands Foundation
The Columbus Foundation
Ohio Arts Council
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Huntington Bank
Nationwide Foundation

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
Kaufman Development
Cardinal Health Foundation

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Past Film/Video

City Hall