Company Town

Gr 10 Up—Themes of gentrification and resistance are paramount in this documentary about the 2015 election campaign for San Francisco District 3 city supervisor, in which pro-business incumbent Julie Christensen faced off against scrappy progressive Aaron Peskin. Many San Franciscans saw the election as a referendum on gentrification and the influence of technology companies, or, as Peskin says, "As goes District 3, so goes San Francisco." The outspoken Peskin wanted to put more limits on tech companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb to protect the city's poor and middle-class residents from losing their homes. Christensen criticized Peskin's adversarial style and implied that she was actually the underdog, calling the race "the girls against the bad boys," a notion the filmmakers undercut by showing her hobnobbing in Silicon Valley at a lavish election night party. The film also follows two San Francisco natives, journalist Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez and Peskin aide Jeffrey Kwong, as they oppose gentrification in the Mission and Chinatown neighborhoods, respectively. Footage from the unfolding campaigns is interspersed with video clips from an Airbnb promotional video, a campaign ad against Peskin, and several newscasts. Repetitive shots of Kwong, Rodriguez, Peskin, and others walking the streets of San Francisco, as well as overlong establishing shots of the Bay Bridge, high-rises, and polling places, slow the pace.