The 54-minute documentary Giants Leap/ À pas de géants, collaboration with filmmaker Lynsey Hamilton, is a diverse portrait of a changing neighbourhood, Vancouver Downtown South, raising questions of progress, heritage preservation, housing and culture, and it represents the changing values of a society.
Unchecked development overlooks long-term social and economic impacts. Development pressures in Vancouver are erasing old structures, the physical evidence of the past, replacing them with questionable construction choices and driving current residents out of their neighbourhoods. The result is a city that is becoming accessible only for the rich and an architecture that is often criticized as second or third rate.
Will Vancouver neighbourhoods’ characters disappear forever? Will these be replaced by a monoculture of unaffordable housing?
– Heart of the City Festival, Vancouver, BC, in 2008
– Oxygen Art Centre, Nelson, BC, BOOM! Forum, curator Nic Harwood, in 2008
– Carnegie Centre, Vancouver, BC, in 2008
– Norquay Neighbours, Vancouver, BC, in 2008
– Les 14e Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois et francophone, Vancouver, BC, 2008
– Vancouver Museum, Vancouver, BC, 2007
Click here to view a 2-minute excerpt of Giants Leap / À pas de géants
1052 Seymour Street
1052 Seymour Street
1052 Seymour Street
1052 Seymour Street
1052 Seymour Street
909 Richards Street
909 Richards Street
909 Richards Street
909 Richards Street
1076 Richards Street
1076 Richards Street
1083 Richards Street
1083 Richards Street
Years ago, each time Florence Debeugny found herself on Richards Street, she stopped at 1021 Richards Street, just across from Richards on Richards, at Percy Linden’s house, surrounded by birdhouses he built himself. Many people knew about him and tourist buses stopped in front of his house to photograph his birdhouses. His house was the first one to be demolished on Richards Street around 2003 and replaced by a condo tower. Most people interviewed in Giants Leap knew of him. During the documentary production, she searched a few times for old pictures of his house, but she could not find any except for the following article.
The Province, Lifestyles article, June 18, 1977
A year after the completion of Giants Leap, while looking at her slides, Florence Debeugny found a few photos of Percy Linden’s house dated 2001 she had totally forgotten about.
Percy Linden’s house, 1021 Richards Street
All photographs, videos and soundtracks in this website are the intellectual
property of Florence Debeugny.
Please contact Florence Debeugny by e-mail at florence@infoserve.net
© Florence Debeugny 2007-2023