Two French Journalists Embed in Daytwah, Find Stories

Helene Bienvenu and Nora Mandray are the two French women behind the blog, Detroit, Je t'aime.

They met while studying for undergraduate degrees at the Paris Institute of Political Studies Sciences Po Paris). After graduation, both fluent in Polish after a year in Poland, they decided to keep studying as a means of traveling.

After six months in Thailand, Helene moved to Hungary to work as a photojournalist and pursue her Hungarian studies. She has worked as a correspondent and travel-writer for French-speaking publications such as Elle Belgium and La Croix and wrote several travel-guides.

Nora left for the U.S, to study filmmaking at UCLA as a Fulbright scholar.  For the past two years, they have been working together to make a film about urban utopia – a pet project of theirs ever since they set foot in the “post-communist” countries. In July 2009, Helene and Nora got a grant from the city of Paris for their "utopia around the world" project, followed shortly thereafter by an Arthur K. Peters Memorial Travel Grant 2010. Finally, in April 2011, the two of them were awarded a development grant from the prestigious French Film Institute (Centre National de la Cinématographie) to write and direct a documentary about Detroit.

In this report, they tell the story of a Detroit bike shop with an unusual history.