CitiIQ Congratulates Winners of the UN-Habitat Better Cities Film Festival in Abu Dhabi

Soufra and Briançon awarded Best in Show 

TORONTO, February 26, 2020 - CitiIQ , a revolutionary cloud-based system that measures the overall health and well-being of cities, congratulates the winning films from the UN-Habitat Better Cities Film Festival at the Tenth Session of the World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi.

CitiIQ (video) was a lead sponsor of this unique experience presented for the first time to more than 18,000 delegates from 8 –13 February 2020.
The Grand Prize Best Feature Film award goes to Soufra , a documentary film about the world’s most unlikely entrepreneur living in a Syrian refugee camp, and the Grand Prize Best Short Film award goes to Briançon, a documentary about an historic French town that tackles issues of preservation of urban life and architectural heritage.

The UN-Habitat Better Cities Film Festival, featured compelling documentary and fictional films about urban issues, including the theme of this year’s World Urban Forum, Cities of Opportunities: Connecting Culture and Innovation .

“Dedicated to measuring a city’s 35 most critical considerations, CitiIQ wanted to augment the most innovative ideas for progress to cities of the world using the power of media and the big screen” said Don Simmonds, Chief Executive Officer of CitiIQ. “The Better Cities Film Festival uses storytelling to inspire cities and communities and we were proud to sponsor this inaugural initiative.”

Film entries were judged by a panel of esteemed urbanists, architects and filmmakers. In addition to the Grand Prize winners, UN-Habitat Better Cities Awards were given to the following best in category films: Better Environment - Detroit Hives; Better Planning & Design - City Dreamers ; Better Transport – Cycologic; Better Communities – Soufra; Better Economies For All - Eastpoint Project; Better Technology & Innovation - Pushing Zero .

Special film festival awards were given to the following films: UN-Habitat Spirit Award - the highly acclaimed documentary The Biggest Little Farm; Best Civic Story Award - Saving the Burg; Best Student Film Award - Dinosaur on Oxford Street; Best Arts & Culture Film Award - The Art of Recovery; Resilience Film Award - Nepal Ecocity Network; Best Bicycle Film Award – Heart and Soul; Emerging Ideas Award - Growth Below; Safer Cities Award - Knife Crime .

City Dreamers , a feature documentary about the urban contributions of four pioneering women architects, is a double award winner, earning the UN-Habitat Hero Award.

“The inaugural UN-Habitat Better Cities Film Festival at WUF10 has been an immense success, best exemplified by the Grand Prize winning short film, Briançon, and Grand Prize feature film, Soufra ,” said Victor Kisob, UN-Habitat Deputy Executive Director, “ UN-Habitat is proud of these, and all of the festival’s award winners, and we foresee the tremendous ripple effects these films will have by showcasing their solutions on a global stage through this new media partnership and platform.”

About CitiIQ

CitiIQ is a comprehensive system that objectively measures the overall health and wellbeing of a city. Using an intuitive online dashboard style interface, a city’s measurements are made readily available to clients through a cloud-based annual subscription. CitiIQ scores 35 essential elements called Considerations, within a framework of the five prioritized Dimensions of Basic Needs, Competitiveness, Opportunity, Livability, and Destiny.

Often used as a diagnostic tool, CitiIQ considers the economic, environmental, social and cultural infrastructures of a city using an algorithm that normalizes scores for over 110 data points or Indicators . By scoring each Indicator, Consideration and Dimension out of 100, clients are provided with a comparable, holistic picture of a city’s strengths and weaknesses. Non-linear aggregation is used to more adequately reflect the multi-faceted aspects of a city through the human lens, the true measure of a city’s success. Scores for each Indicator, Consideration, Dimension and the Total City Score are updated quarterly and are made available immediately through the interface (BI). Working to become the global standard for city diagnostics, CitiIQ employs an evidence-based methodology that informs human-centric design to help a city, community or town reach its full potential.

For more information contact CitiIQ directly at info@citiiq.com

Better Cities Film Festival 

Better Cities Film Festival curates the best films from around the world on the theme of making cities and towns better places to work, live and play. The 2020 Better Cities Film Festival will take place in Detroit, October 8-11th.

More info at: www.bettercitiesfilmfestival.com

UN-Habitat and World Urban Forum

UN-Habitat works in over 90 countries supporting people in cities and human settlements for a better urban future. Working with governments and local partners, its high impact projects combine world-class expertise and local knowledge to deliver timely and targeted solutions. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes a dedicated Goal on cities, SDG 11 – to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The World Urban Forum (WUF) is the leading conference on cities. Convened by UN-Habitat, the Forum is a high level, open and inclusive platform for addressing the challenges of sustainable urbanization.

More info on UN-Habitat and World Urban Forum at: https://wuf.unhabitat.org

MEDIA CONTACT:
Jeff Wilson, Director of Business Development: jwilson@citiiq.com