I Have Always Been A Dreamer is an essay film about globalization and urban ecology using the examples of two cities in contrasting states of development: Dubai, UAE and Detroit, U.S.A. Within the context of a boom and bust economy, the film questions the history and collective ideologies that shape the physical landscape and impact local communities.
Though these cities represent two different economic eras (Fordist and Post-Fordist), both cities vividly illustrate the effects of economic monocultures and the arbitrary consequences of geopolitical advantage. The film delves into the Industrial history of Detroit in comparison to present- day Dubai. The film serves as a visual documentation of these two cities as indexes of political, cultural and economic change while tracing the ways each city’s development is tied to technologies of communication, production, labor, and consumption.
The portion of the film concerning Dubai depicts a postmodern city in a continual process of being built, and posits Dubai as virtual in the sense that it is artificial, performed and shaped by an increasingly service-based economy driven by tourism. By contrast, the portion of the film depicting Detroit reveals a once shining example of a Fordist city presently in ruins and in the process of being vacated, beleaguered by a failing industrial-based economy vacillating between ideologies of self-preservation and destruction.
The film was shot in Detroit, MI and Dubai, UAE, exploring their landscape through various modes of transport, and includes interviews with local historians, scholars, and artists. The film was produced between 2007 and 2012.
Sabine Gruffat is Assistant Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. She has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wayne State University, and the University of Missouri. She has been making films for over 15 years and her feature films have screened at festivals and museums worldwide including at the Viennale, MoMA, Cinéma du Réel at the Centre Pompidou, Migrating Forms, and The Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.
Sabine Gruffat is also a studio artist and has also produced digital media works for public spaces as well as interactive installations that have been shown at the Zolla Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, Art In General, MoMA/PS1 Contemporary Art Museum, and Hudson Franklin in New York.
“A globe-spanning essay on the intermingling forces of expansion and entropy, Sabine Gruffat’s beautiful film gives poetic expression to the conceptual terrain of urban studies and asks from a startling variety of perspectives ‘what is a city now?’.”
-Michael Gitlin, Associate Professor, Dept. of Film and Media Studies, Hunter College - CUNY.
Elegantly composed, thoughtfully constructed I Have Always Been A Dreamer is a rich, meditative, and informative tale of two cities.
-Edward Rankus, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Communication Studies Department.
"A masterful cinematic essay and a significant addition to our Visual Media library collection."
-Bill Brown, Lecturing Fellow, Arts of the Moving Image, Duke University.