Mudado para Pior: Residents’ responses to Portugal’s ‘Special Rehousing Program’ as expressed in Outros Bairros and Nada Fazi

Abstract

As part of the larger discussion about the persistent and worldwide problem of access to adequate housing, I examine in this article the effects of government-led rehousing efforts in Lisbon, Portugal, through the lens of filmic representations of those effects. Specifically, I look at how residents of both the self-built neighbourhoods (demolished or soon-to-be) and public housing responded to the Projeto Especial de Realojamento through an analysis of two films, the documentary Outros Bairros and the fictional short film Nada Fazi , which represent a sort of ‘before and after’ of those government efforts. The residents’ voices and stories are compared to each other and set against a backdrop of journalistic reporting and sociological studies.