Summary

Maison d'Être is an exploratory documentary about people's emotional place attachment in highly dynamic Greater Paris undergoing large-scale urban renewal campaigns. Parisien suburbia has been a frontier between world civilisations where wellbeing encounters despair. Here local habits get confronted by government-sponsored plans for urban transformation and social aid. In Paris "home" manifests itself as one of the key existential challenges of the modern culture - a "raison d'être" of everyday life. The film is addressed to both professional audiences of urbanists, city planners, architects, and curious public. It displays numerous conversations among residents, city activists, politicians, city planners and scientists, those who reflect on the regeneration strategy of the socially depressed urban neighbourhoods.