'Citify' by Elyse Frenchman Wins Award in Best Women Filmmakers at Hollywood International Independent Documentary Film Awards.  

This short film charts the 30 year history of MIT's Joint Urban Design Studio with Tsinghua University, against the backdrop of drastic urbanization in China.  It features a number of MIT and Tsinghua faculty and students and their work.  Tt was filmed, directed, and produced by Elyse Frenchman, a dear member of the DUSP family (daughter of Prof. Dennis Frenchman).  

This year, MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning celebrated 30 years of collaboration with Tsinghua University through the MIT-THU Joint Urban Design Studio program. Since 1987, the “Beijing Studio,” has brought up to 20 MIT students to China every other summer to spend a month working with Chinese colleagues to grapple with urban design issues in a country undergoing dramatic—and continuous—transition.

In 2016, the documentary “Citify” premiered as part of a series of events celebrating the anniversary, including a large-scale exhibition of student designs at the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall near Tiananmen Square. Directed and filmed by Elyse Frenchman, the documentary traces China’s phenomenal urban transformation over the studio’s three decades.

See more of Elyse Frenchman’s work: http://elysefrenchman.com/
Learn more about the Beijing Studio: http://mitsha.re/my7R302lHOs