City government touches almost every aspect of our lives. Most of us are unaware of or take for granted these necessary services such as police, fire, sanitation, veterans affairs, elder support, parks, licensing of various professional activities, record keeping of birth, marriage and death as well as hundreds of other activities that support Boston residents and visitors. CITY HALL, by Frederick Wiseman, shows the efforts by the Boston city government to provide these services. The film also illustrates the variety of ways the city administration enters into civil discourse with the citizens of Boston. Mayor Walsh and his administration are presented addressing a number of their policy priorities which include racial justice, affordable housing, climate action, and homelessness. CITY HALL shows a city government successfully offering a wide variety of services to a diverse population.

“Mr. Wiseman is an artist. His shots are carefully composed and painstakingly edited into assemblages that reveal the layers and patterns of experience. His movies are not raw transcripts of reality, but artifacts and representations, at once abstract and laden with content.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“Essential viewing. Frederick Wiseman is American cinema’s foremost sociological auteur. Even at the age of 90, Wiseman continues to churn out non-fiction gems like no other, and that definitely holds true with regards to his latest, CITY HALL.” – Nick Schager, Daily Beast