Full Frame alumni Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (12th and Delaware) return with an affecting and modern symphony of Detroit, a casualty and the epitome of fin de siècle industrial and urban abandonment. The city’s rapid decline (half of its inhabitants have moved since 1970 and half of its manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000) triggered a fight-or-flight response on a massive scale, resulting in unprecedented political and civic challenges and corresponding radical countermeasures. Composed of emotional survivor stories and rendered in a ruddy Midwestern chiaroscuro of brick and rust, DETROPIA reveals facets of the beleaguered metropolitan organism that have remained unseen and unspoken in the spate of trendy and superficial decay-chic marketing campaigns. All told, the circumstances, and the film, engender a feeling for the present-day pioneer sensibility, equal parts daunted and inspired.  TM