Cinema and the City in the Era of Planetary Urbanisation
This book talk asks what it means to approach cinema not only as a medium of representation, but as a method of urban research. In presenting Cinema and the City in the Era of Planetary Urbanisation (2026, JOVIS), Nitin Bathla reflects on how film can open alternative ways of sensing, documenting, and analysing contemporary urbanisation. The volume brings together interdisciplinary contributions that treat cinema as an active participant in the production of urban knowledge, rather than a passive mirror of the city.
Drawing on case studies that span urban centres, infrastructural corridors, and extended urban landscapes, the book situates cinema within debates on planetary urbanisation, infrastructure, labour migration, and environmental transformation. Contributors examine how cinematic practices register urban processes that unfold across scales and temporalities, often remaining invisible to conventional planning, policy, and analytical frameworks.
The book foregrounds film as a situated and embodied practice of inquiry that intervenes in how urbanisation is made visible and intelligible. Attending to sensory, temporal, and affective registers, the contributions unsettle dominant visual regimes and open space for alternative urban imaginaries and modes of engagement.
The talk will be accompanied by the screening of selected excerpts from Bathla’s documentary Not Just Roads, which is also discussed in the volume. The film excerpts will be used to reflect on cinema’s capacity to operate as a research practice—one that intervenes in debates in urban political ecology by foregrounding infrastructure, everyday life, and environmental struggle.
Meet our speaker and chair
Nitin Bathla is Group Leader in Infrastructure Geography at the University of Zurich, and Lecturer in Urban Studies at ETH Zurich. He is the author of the award-winning book Researching Otherwise: Pluriversal Methods for Urban and Landscape Studies and the critically acclaimed documentary Not Just Roads. He serves as an editor at Urban Geography and the Urban Political Podcast. His research is situated in the field of urban political ecology, with a focus on infrastructure, environmental governance, and the socio-ecological dimensions of urbanization. His work combines transdisciplinary academic inquiry with artistic practices.
Hyun Bang Shin (@urbancommune) is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies and the Head of the Department of Geography and Environment at LSE.
More about this event
The Department of Geography and Environment is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change.
The Urban Salon is a London-based forum for architecture, cities, and international urbanism.
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