This monthly series will take a look at the symbiotic relationship between moving images and their megatropolis muse – New York City. The late 20th and early 21st century works presented in this series posit observations on the particular dynamics of New York’s neighborhoods and characterize the groups vying for social, cultural, economic and physical control of limited space. We will take a bi-monthly look at two different neighborhoods through documentary and narrative film. Using media as a tool for social critique and transformation, we provide a forum for filmmakers, advocates, and activists to discuss the work they do to document, preserve, or develop specific communities. Programming by Jessica Green with Philip Maysles.

Intro: The Celluloid Jungle

Miriam Greenberg, Author of Branding New York: How a City in Crisis Was Sold to The World

A look at the overall intersection between NYC's urban development and its media representation. Will trace how NYC's historic role as a "media town" has been both symbiotic and parasitic --at different times fueling the city's growth, decline, and gentrification. Will include film clips from Superfly, Dog Day Afternoon, Deathwish, Ghostbusters and Wall Street.

Giuliani Time
Dir: Kevin Keating, 2006, 118 mins.
Investigates the ‘new’ New York City that then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed he helped create.

Q&A with Filmmaker Kevin Keating to follow screening.

CENTRAL HARLEM

I Remember Harlem •Parts 1 & 2 (120 mins.)
Dir. William Miles, 1980, 240 mins.
This four-hour special traces Harlem's 350-year history, evoking one of America's most vibrant and volatile communities. As a visual counterpart to the oral histories in the film, Miles unearthed old photographs and motion picture films and newsreel footage, much of it rare and never before seen on television. In early 1982, one year after it was broadcast, I Remember Harlem won an Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Citation and an American Film Festival Award.

part 1: "The Early Years (1658-1930)", 1980, (60 mins.)
part 2: "The Depression Years", 1980, (60 mins.)

CENTRAL HARLEM

I Remember Harlem •Parts 3 & 4 (120 mins.)
Dir. William Miles, 1980, 240 mins.

part 3: "Toward Freedom" 1980, (60 mins.)
part 4: "Toward a New Day" 1980, (60 mins.)

CENTRAL HARLEM

Rezoning Harlem
Dir. Natasha Florentino & Tamara Gubernat, 2008, 40 mins.
Rezoning Harlem follows longtime members of the Harlem community as they fight a 2008 rezoning that threatens to erase the history and culture of their legendary neighborhood and replace it with luxury housing, offices, and big-box retail. A shocking expose of how a group of ordinary citizens, who are passionate about the future of one the city's most treasured neighborhoods, are systematically shut out of the city's decision-making process, revealing New York City's broken public review system and provoking discussion on what we can do about it.

CENTRAL HARLEM

Central Harlem Panel

Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council
Michael Henry Adams, Historian
Beatrice A. Sibblies, Community Board 10, Real Estate Developer
Rezoning Harlem Directors, Natasha Florentino, Tamara Gubernat

CENTRAL HARLEM

Harlem's Mart 125: The American Dream
Dir. Rachelle Gardner, 2005 (7 minute trailer)

followed by:
The Brother From Another Planet
Dir. John Sayles, 1984,108 mins.
A black mute alien lands on Ellis island and wanders into a bar in Harlem. When he fixes a video game in the bar, he gets a job fixing arcade machines. It turns out he is able to fix bot machines and people by touch alone. However, he is a fugutive from his own planet and white aliens arrive to apprehend him.

EAST HARLEM

Whose Barrio?
Dirs. Ed Morales & Laura Rivera, 2007, 45 mins.
"El Barrio. It was a magic Spanish phrase that fell from my father's lips, describing a place that belonged to us, even if New York didn't belong to us. From the 50's onward, it became the ultimate place of authenticity for Puerto Ricans and other Latinos. In the 70's, the city went into a recession, and El Barrio went through hard times. Now, real estate speculation is threatening to change the neighborhood so that it is no longer recognizable." – Ed Morales

EAST HARLEM

East Harlem Panel

Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council
Michael Henry Adams, Historian
Beatrice A. Sibblies, Community Board 10, Real Estate Developer
Rezoning Harlem Directors, Natasha Florentino, Tamara Gubernat

EAST HARLEM
(All Films in Spanish and English)

March to Save Our Homes and Our Barrio
Dir. Marcos Meconi, Movement for Justice, 2007, 8 mins.
On August 26th, 2007, Movement for Justice in El Barrio lead a historic "March to Save Our Homes and Our Barrio" to stand their ground against gentrification and displacement. They marched to New York City's Dept. Of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD) Service Center to present prizes to the three worst landlords in East Harlem and deliver the grand prize to HPD for being ultimately responsible for failing to enforce NYC housing laws. Tenants set up an encampment at HPD to symbolize the threat of homelessness that results from the displacement of low-income communities and the destruction of affordable housing. International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio
Dir. Salvador Pantoja and Movement for Justice, 2008, 8 mins.
Movement for Justice in El Barrio has taken the struggle against gentrification in New York City to an international level. Through the new "International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio", they are organizing on a transnational level to combat displacement in El Barrio (East Harlem) by building a multi-national network to go after one of their main targets, the multi-national corporation Dawnay, Day Group at their central headquarters in London and on multiple continents where they hold property.

March for Dignity and Against Displacement
Dir. Movement, 2008, 10 mins.
In a battle of David and Goliath proportions, Movement for Justice in El Barrio successfully fought back against the efforts of the multi-national British corporation Dawnay, Day's aggressive attempts to displace tenants living in 47 East Harlem buildings. The East Harlem community marched to celebrate the recently announced demise of Dawnay, Day Group as it has fallen victim to its own greed and is selling off its properties to cover its debt while it crashes to its ruin. They also held a rally in front of Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito's luxury townhouse to expose her actions in supporting gentrification & displacement across Harlem.

NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Gentrification
Dir. Christine Peng and Movement for Justice, 2008, 30 mins.
In October of 2007, people from 26 social justice groups from around the region gathered in East Harlem for the first-ever historic "NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Gentrification." Movement for Justice in El Barrio invited groups from around the city who are fighting against gentrification from the ground up to come share who they are, what problems they face, who or what is their enemy and what are their dreams. This film tells the story of what was said. Featuring: CAAAV, FIERCE, Make the Road New York, Movement for Justice in El Barrio, UNYTE, West Side SRO Law Project.

Panel: Movement For Justice in El Barrio
Sonia Guzman, Josefina Salazar, Filiberto Hernandez and Oscar Dominguez

EAST HARLEM

Palante Siempre Palante!
Dir. Iris Morales, 1996, 48 mins.
Through on-camera interviews with former members, archival footage, photographs and music, the documentary surveys Puerto Rican history, the Young Lords' political vision and actions, and the organization's legacy.In the midst of the African American liberation struggle, protests to end the Vietnam War and the women's movement for equality,
    Puerto Rican and Latino/a communities fought for economic, racial and social justice. From Chicago streets to the barrios of New York City and other urban centers, the Young Lords emerged to demand decent living conditions and raised a militant voice for the empowerment of Puerto Ricans and other Latino/as in the United States and for the independence of Puerto Rico.

Across 110th Street
Dir. Barry Shear, 1972, 102 mins.
When three stick-up men disguised as cops raid a mob pay-off meeting in Harlem, steal $300,000, and kill a handful of mobsters, they become the target of a mahunt involving a mafia boss bent on revenge, a rival group of Harlem gangsters, and two cops - an up-and-coming idealistic, black lieutenant and a middle-aged, racist white captain who must overcome their differences to solve the crime.

Alice Neel
Dir. Andrew Neel, 2007, 82 mins.

DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN

DOWNTOWN EAST / LOWER EAST SIDE

Brave New York •
Dir. Richard Sandler, 2004, 54 min.
This free form documentary loosely chronicles the last 12 years of intense change in the East Village. From the reopening of a newly curfewed Tompkins Square Park and Wigstock in ‘92, to the destruction of the cherished Loisaida Community Gardens, to the yuppie invasions of the dot com years, to the present era, indelibly stamped with post 9/11 grief, this lusty neighborhood survives in spite of a real estate gold rush that excludes all but the well-to-do. The main voices are those of artists and street people whose wisdom and commentaries upon the dominant culture give us pause amidst the speedy approach of a "brave new world."


Subway to the Former East Village Dir. Richard Sandler, 2008
Sandler used unused footage shot for Brave New York and SWAY, a film shot entirely underground in NYC’s subway system to create this new experimental film.
Director Richard Sandler available for Q&A

Brave New York/Subway to the Former East Village:
www.richardsandler.com

DOWNTOWN EAST / LOWER EAST SIDE

Captured •
Dir. Ben Solomon, Dan Levin, and Jenner Furst, 2007, 90 min.
From drag to hardcore, heroin, homelessness, political chaos and ultimately gentrification, the lawlessness and raw creativity of the Lower East Side’s street art, music, and revolutionary minds have been documented by Clayton Patterson since 1979. The drugs, piercings, Mohawks, and graffiti on display are, in this context, not kitschy or nostalgic. Instead they express the rich diversity of many little communities living together on the LES. In the 70’s the Lower East Side was not merely a trendy neighborhood with a bustling nightlife, it was a cauldron of avant-garde music and art stirred together with punk rock and the nascent hip hop culture. It was dirty, crumbling, and often quite dangerous. Clayton never anticipated that this largely working class neighborhood of Puerto Ricans, Jewish immigrants, radical squatters, and decadent hipsters would become the locus of the city’s never-ending cycle of gentrification. Twenty years before there was YouTube, Patterson’s footage of police brutality (from the Thompson Square Park riot) served as evidence in the one of the largest suits in the history of the NYPD. Patterson’s odyssey from voyeur to provocateur reveals that it can take losing everything you love to find your own significance.
Directors and Clayton Patterson available for Q&As

www.capturedmovie.com

DOWNTOWN EAST / LOWER EAST SIDE

Landlord Blues •
Dir. Jacob Burckhardt, 1987, 96 min.
A shocking, richly ironic class struggle on the Lower East Side, Landlord Blues, is a quintessential New York Story about a sleazy slumlord that evicts old ladies, deals coke and keeps an arsonist on retainer. The greedy not so clever landlord wants to evict a bicycle shop and replace it with a swanky art gallery but is outwitted in a high-speed bike chase. Welcomed for its relaxed, unpretentious charm, the film is not above playing genre jokes with a campy shock cut or film noir camera placement every once in a while.
Director Jacob Burckhardt available for Q&A

DOWNTOWN EAST / CHINATOWN

From Spikes to Spindles •
Dir. Christine Choy, 1976, 50 min.
In this raw portrait of New York's Chinatown, residents across New York band together to protest police brutality and greedy real estate developers. This coalition of young and old, Caucasian and Asian confront city officials and attempt to fight the physical and emotional dismantling of a community. Also explored are the issues that shape contemporary experience; gentrification, shifting notions of community, and the abuse of power by a police force charged with cleaning up the city.

Here to Stay
Dir. ManSee Kong, 2007, 7 min.
A short, poignant documentary about an elderly Chinese man who lives in an endangered SRO as the Chinatown community fends off developers.

8:00 pm
Panel: Helena Wong, Chinatown Justice Project, CAAAV, ManSee Kong, Director of Here to Stay, Community Board 3, John Woo, Chinatown Community Center

Third World Newsreel >

DOWNTOWN EAST / CHINATOWN

Eat a Bowl of Tea •
Dir. Wayne Wang, 1989, 102 min.
From the director of Smoke and The Joy Luck Club, comes this tale of Chinese immigrants in New York involving a prearranged marriage, impotence, infidelity, interfering elders, the benevolent tyranny of family, and even a severed ear. Until 1946 Asians were locked out of American citizenship and were not allowed to bring their wives or families with them to the United States. Based on Louis Chu’s novel, the film is set in Chinatown, 1949, when Wah dispatches his son to bring back a Chinese bride and start making grandchildren.

Eat a Bowl of Tea Trailer >

DOWNTOWN WEST

Ballad of Greenwich Village
Dir. Karen Kramer, 2005, 70 min.
Interweaving past and present, and combining 16mm footage, archival photographs, Hollywood movies, cartoons, stories from people living and dead, famous and obscure – and with a soundtrack ranging from ragtime to bebop to folk music– this film is a celebration of what was America’s true bohemia. The artists, rebels, and bohemians of New York’s Greenwich Village transformed American culture by doing things like starting the first interracial jazz club, founding Socialist newspapers at the dawn of the 20th century and throwing the first punches at the 1969 Stonewall rebellion that sparked gay liberation. The film also interweaves on-camera stories from well-known celebrities who got their start in Greenwich Village. Actor/director Tim Robbins speaks about growing up in the Village and going to early protest rallies. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg shows us the coffee house where he first read poetry. Amiri Baraka shares stories. Other memories are shared by poet Maya Angelou, author Norman Mailer, jazz drummer Roy Haynes, and folk singers Peter, Paul, & Mary, Judy Collins, and Richie Havens - as well as local Village painters, drag queens, activists, and club owners. Actress Lili Taylor is the narrator.
Director Karen Kramer available for Q&A.

www.balladofgreenwichvillage.com

DOWNTOWN WEST

Next Stop Greenwich Village
Dir. Paul Mazursky, 1976, 111 min.
Though he may borrow some from Fellini, Mazursky's hip, semi-autobiographical film is more honest and true to life than usual. The film follows the journey of a young Jewish Brooklyn, 50s Beat era boy who moves to Greenwich Village aiming for an acting career –honestly depicting the way hopeful aspiring artists relate to each other, alternately propping each other up and tearing each other down. Some of the friends he meets there, include sexy, edgy Sarah, suicidal Anita, flamboyant Bernstein, and narcissistic playwright Robert (a young Christopher Walken).

DOWNTOWN WEST

Fenced Out
Dir. Paper Tiger TV with FIERCE! & The Neutral Zone, 2001, 28 min.
Fenced Out documents the fight for the Christopher St. pier, a long-established hangout and safe haven for New York City’s youth of color, homeless, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and two-spirited youth. In the summer of 2000, with support from residents of nearby waterfront properties, development began for a state park that would “fence out” the kids. The documentary includes interviews with “pierets” about how important the pier is to them, and with LGBTQ activists about the history of the piers and the gay liberation movement of the 60’s.

Fenced Out Trailer >

Life on Christopher Street
Dir. Maria Clara, 2002, 28 min.
Through the eyes of these urban male youth, known as “Homo Thugs”, we see gay rappers, “Blood” gang members, pimps, and prostitutes in their struggle to maintain dignity. The film is an exposé of a rising subculture of Black and Latino gay youth born in the late 70’s to early 80’s, representing the Hip-Hop generation. These urban gay youth living on the most popular gay strip in the world maintain the aggressive hyper masculine image and attitude represented in the Hip-Hop culture, contradicting the stereotypical image of homosexuals.

Life on Christopher Street >

8:00 pm
Panel: Life on Christopher Street Director and Producer, Maria Clara, Kimberly Gray, FIERCE, Community Board 2 LGBT Taskforce

UPPER EAST SIDE/UPPER WEST SIDE

UPPER EAST SIDE/UPPER WEST SIDE

Metropolitan •
Dir. Whit Stillman,1990, 98 mins.
This critically acclaimed film introduces us to the character Nick Smith, a witty twenty-five year old boy who’s one part Holden Caulfield and one part Gatsby. Against the backdrop of his friends’ parents’ lavish homes, he holds court over an aimless bunch of Upper East Side debutantes and their escorts. Smith offers the critical eye of the displaced outsider, whose lightning wit cuts through this social milieu, offering a unique take on an exotic bourgeois Manhattan worldview.

UPPER EAST SIDE/UPPER WEST SIDE

Upper West Side Films and Panel

The Case Against Lincoln Center
Third World Newsreel,1968,12 mins.
This short film documents the thousands of working-class Latino families who were displaced in the late 1960’s to make way for the Lincoln Center. The film juxtaposes the vibrancy of street life in this Upper West Side neighborhood against the influx of corporate wealth backing the Lincoln Center project, sagely predicting the transformation of the Upper West Side from a working-class haven to a high-rent playground for the upper class.

Digital Story: The Center For Immigrant Families
2007, 5 mins.
An introduction to this collectively run organization, based in Manhattan Valley, of low-income immigrant women of color and community members.

Panel: Representatives from Center for Immigrant Families

and

Susan Feingold, Co-Founder and Former Executive Director, The Bloomingdale Family Program

UPPER EAST SIDE/UPPER WEST SIDE

Take-Out
Sean Baker and Shin-Ching Tsou, 2008, 87 mins.
Take Out is a day-in-the-life portrait of an Upper West Side Manhattan Chinese food delivery worker. The film nimbly follows Ming Ding, a Chinese immigrant, as he rides his bike through the rain-soaked city for his meager pay. The film evolves into a nuanced drama of the door – tippers, non-tippers, dogs etc… and offers a sympathetic story about finding your way in Manhattan.

UPPER EAST SIDE/UPPER WEST SIDE

The Gates
Dir. Antonio Ferrera, Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Matthew Prinzing, 2007,
87 mins.
Albert Maysles and his brother David began filming for The Gates in 1979, as Christo and Jeanne-Claude began actively pushing their project forward. Maysles’ team attended community board hearings, capturing the emerging controversy as the Park’s poorer communities to the North voted in favor of the project, while the Park’s richest neighborhoods to the East and South opposed it. Henry Stern, former Parks Commissioner added: “It is a massive intrusion on nature. It’s an imposition of one man’s ego on the nation’s greatest urban park.”

UPPER EAST SIDE/UPPER WEST SIDE

The Prisoner of Second Avenue
Dir. Melvin Frank, 1975, 98 mins.
Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft team up in this wildly funny study of a New York couple driven to madness by the indignities of middle-class Manhattan living on the Upper East Side, which is based on a Neil Simon play of the same name. Lemon, who plays a recently laid off advertising executive, quickly discovers that 1970's Manhattan is both the source of his frustration as well as an outlet for it. A period piece and at the same time a timeless take on the ticking time bomb that is the out-of-work urbanite.

TIMES SQUARE

TIMES SQUARE

Street Smart
Dir. Jerry Schatzberg, 1987, 97 mins.
This gritty rough street tale is set during the final throes of the old Times Square – when pimps, prostitutes and pushers would leisurely stroll the Deuce, offering their services in front of the Lyric, Victory, Rialto and other palaces of projected porn. It's a look at the world of differences between a well-heeled magazine journalist (Christopher Reeve), who concocts a fictional profile of an upwardly mobile Times Square pimp, and a real pimp (Morgan Freeman), who the police are convinced is the model for the story.

TIMES SQUARE

The Gods of Times Square •
Dir. Richard Sandler, 1999, 114 mins.
Times Square was like an open-air cathedral, an obligatory junction for self-respecting New Yorkers, where sex-shops and by-the-hour hotels proliferated. It was the ideal place to call lost sheep back to the straight and narrow path, preachers and exhorters sermonizing loudly were part of the daily hyper-activity of the site. They ranged from Soapbox Black Militants to a man who thinks he’s Jesus and predestined to marry Madonna to the anti-corporate political theater of Reverend Billy. For six years Sandler filmed the Deuce during a pivotal time before the square was purchased by Disney in 1994 and a radical clean up by Giuliani.

TIMES SQUARE

Times Square Films and Panel

Square Times
Dir. Rudy Burckhardt, 1967, 6.5 mins.
A Saturday night on 42nd Street, from dusk to dawn. The glamour, the garbage, the hot dogs, the movies, the sex and the violence in the air -- with music by The Supremes.

Sodom and Gomorrah, NY, 10036
Dir. Rudy Burckhardt, 1976, 6.5 mins.
A documentary about the sex industry around 8th Avenue and 42nd Street.

Doin’ Time in Time Square Charlie Ahearn
1991, 39 mins.
Described as the home video from hell, Doin' Time in Times Square documents the view and action outside director Charlie Ahearn's 43rd Street apartment window from 1981 to 1983. Charlie Ahearn, whose 1983 film Wild Style was a cult hip hop hit, was "blessed" with a generous view of the sleeze emporiums up Eighth Avenue and down 43rd. His window provides a view into midtown New York's street brutality in those dark years before it was "cleaned up" and "Disneyfied", His Hi-8 camera captures rip-offs, drug sales, police stake-outs and fights - lots of fights. On any given day we see fist-fights, domestic squabbles and bad deals going down. It is both a social and personal document.

Jane in Peepland
Dir. Charlie Ahearn, 1993, 20 mins.
Painter Jane Dickson as resident observer of the neon lit streets of Times Square.

A&E Biography: Times Square
2001, 10 mins.
Clips from A&E Biography: Times Square on Guy Gonzales and his 40 Deuce Sex Show performer days.

Panelists:
Dir. Charlie Ahearn (Doin' Time in Times Square, Wild Style)
Dir. Richard Sandler (The Gods of Times Square)
Jane Dickson (Public Artist/The MTA Mosaic/42nd street)
Guy Gonzales (Artist, Former 42nd Street Sex Show Performer)

RENT CONTROL: SOUTH/NORTH BROOKLYN

SOUTH/NORTH BROOKLYN

The Landlord
Hal Ashby, 1970, 110 min.
Set in a pregentrified Park Slope, Hal Ashby's provocative Me Decade dramedy isn't as clueless as its protagonist is about cultural clashes. Elgar Enders (a baby-faced Beau Bridges), purchases a tenement in Brooklyn and a complicated relationship with the African-American occupants develops.

SOUTH/NORTH BROOKLYN

The Education of Sonny Carson
Dir. Michael Campus, 1974, 104 min.
The Education Of Sonny Carson captures the struggles of life in 1950's gang infested Bedford Stuyvesant and is based on the best-selling autobiography of the late community organizer Sonny Carson.

SOUTH/NORTH BROOKLYN

Do the Right Thing
Dir. Spike Lee, 1989, 120 min.
The film tells a tale of bigotry and racial conflict in a multi-ethnic community in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Filmed on Stuyvesant Avenue between Lexington Avenue and Quincy Street, the film stars Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, and John Turturro.

SOUTH/NORTH BROOKLYN

Subprimed
Dir. Sarah Friedland, Kahil Shkymba and Nayo Joy Simmons, 2008.
Subprimed tells the story of the national foreclosure crisis through the eyes of hard-hit East New York – a community that is no stranger to tough times. As more and more homes in the neighborhood bear foreclosure signs, individual victims of egregious lending practices come to realize they are not alone, and find the strength to band together and save their community from catastrophe.

Brooklyn Matters
Dir. Isabel Hill, 2007
The film documents the fight against the Atlantic Yards development project in downtown Brooklyn, plan that includes a New York Nets basketball arena and 17 office and apartment buildings along Atlantic Avenue. Includes interviews with Paul Goldberger, Bob Law, Councilwoman Letitia James and Julia Vitullo-Martin and footage of community input meetings.

SOUTH/NORTH BROOKLYN

Laws of Gravity
Dir. Nick Gomez, 1993, 100 min.
A three-day, verite, slice-of-life in Greenpoint. Two (sort of) thugs and their girlfriends (one played by Edie Falco) work Brooklyn's white ethnic underground economy and are pursued by the police.

SOUTH/NORTH BROOKLYN

Metropolitan Ave
Dir. Christine Noschese, 1986
"Metropolitan Avenue" introduces us to a lively Williamsburg Brooklyn in the 80s – which like many urban areas faced many problems. But in this case, a group of 'traditional' homemakers from varied ethnic backgrounds rise to the challenge and become leaders in the effort to save their community.

Up on the Roof
J.L. Aronson, 2008, 58 min.
Up On The Roof explores the lives and practices of men who have raised pigeons on rooftops for decades on the South Side in Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn. The rooftops were, at one time, crowded with enthusiastic pigeon keepers, and some still meet in clubs to brag about their flocks or argue about the best breeds. This film is about a hobby that has made a bunch of guys really really happy and their ability to continue enjoying it in a changing Williamsburg.

Duke Riley Presents Paul Piers for Chanel
2006
A video about the homeless people who lived in a Williamsburg warehouse and created a micro-industry out of found items, supplying vintage stores.

NORTH BRONX

Bullwackie in New York
Christopher Coy, 1986, 55 min.
This rare documentary captures the dub and sound system impresarrio at work in his North Bronx studio and at play on the cricket field and in the clubs. Features performances by Wackie's All Stars, including Horace Andy, Lone Ranger, Sugar Minott and many more.

Passin' It On: 25 Years Organizing the Northwest Bronx
Lyn Pyle, 1999, 36 min.
A documentary on the grassroots movement to renew the Northwest Bronx from the blight of the 1960s and 1970s, when fires and abandonment encouraged the financial redlining of the community.

NORTH BRONX

Films of the Kuchar Brothers
George Kuchar and his twin brother Mike began producing ultra-low-budget underground versions of Hollywood genre films in the 1950s. These 8mm kitchen-sink masterpieces positioned the Kuchar brothers as the Bronx's answer to the downtown underground filmmaking scene.

Mosholu Holiday
George Kuchar, 1966, 16 mm, 9 min.
A special guest appearance by Canadian TV star Bill Ronald along with the massive presence of "Mrs. Bronx" herself, Frances Leibowitz, and her girlfriend Iris, make this film a must-see for travel enthusiasts and horror fans.

Tales of the Bronx
Michael Kuchar, 1970, 16 mm, 16 min.
From the elephant house of Bronx Zoo to the eight story tall Tabonga Terrace apartments on Sedgwich Avenue, living Mammals scream for their place in the Sun.

(Additional Films TBA)

SOUTH BRONX

La Bruja: A Witch from the Bronx
Dir. Felix Rodriguez, 2005, 50 min.
Art, labor and family blend in this intimate documentary about performance artist Caridad De La Luz, better know as 'La Bruja'. Born and raised in the Bronx, this daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants takes the number 6 train to downtown Manhattan where she performs at popular New York City venues. This documentary is a celebration of La Bruja's perseverance to gain visibility and recognition in the entertainment industry and her extended family's unconditional support.

SOUTH BRONX

The Maysles Cinema and the Center for Urban Pedagogy present Disorder in the Court - an evening on the Bronx's Housing Court. We will also screen Lincoln Hospital this evening, a short film that takes a look at the relationship between another kind of space and a populace.

Lincoln Hospital Newsreel
1970, 12 min.
When a city-run health clinic in the South Bronx fails to meet the needs of the city, local residents and health workers force a strike and then run the clinic themselves.

Housing Court
William Sarokin and Beni Matias, 1985, 30 min.
Examines the operations of the Bronx Housing Court and the 125,000 disputes between tenants and landlords it mediates annually, including evictions, rent strikes and housing code violations. The film also explores the social and economic causes for the growing problem of urban housing decay.

The screening will be followed by an update on issues currently facing the Bronx's Housing Court from Philippe Knab, a Housing Court Attorney working with the Bronx Defenders.

This program is curated by Valeria Mogilevich.

SOUTH BRONX

Simpson Street
William Sarokin, 1979, 22 min
A brief but compelling history of New York's devastated South Bronx, showing reasons for its decline, and introducing the people who live there and some of their unfruitful efforts to rebuild their economy.

Bronx Burning
Edwin Pagan, 2009, Work in Progress, 15 min.
Chronicles the arson-for-insurance fraud fires of the 1970s in the South Bronx.

South Bronx Photo Slideshow
Photographer Joe Conzo
15 min.

Panel discussion with Director Edwin Pagan, Photographer Joe Conzo, Filmmaker, DJ and activist Loira Limbal and Lorraine Montenegro, Executive Director of United Bronx Parents.

SOUTH BRONX

The Police Tapes
Alan Raymond and Susan Raymond, 1977, 88 min.
Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond (An American Family) spent three months in 1976 riding along with patrol officers in the 44th Precinct of the South Bronx, which had the highest crime rate in New York City. They produced about 40 hours of videotape that they edited into a 90-minute documentary. A strong influence on Fort Apache, The Bronx, Hill Street Blues, COPS and continues to influence the representation of urban communities in general.

QUEENS

The 7 Train: An Immigrant Journey
Hye Jung Park,1999, 29 min.
Every day 500,000 people from 117 different countries ride a subway that runs from Flushing to Times Square, going through Queens, the most culturally diverse region in the United States. This documentary follows four immigrant passengers: a Korean who works in Harlem, two Otavalen street vendors who work near Chinatown, and a gay Pakistani sari salesman on Fifth Avenue. Their lives and relationships with the city are juxtaposed with the subway they take each day to Manhattan and their dreams in this colorful piece.

A Son's Sacrifice
Yoni Brook, 2007, 27 min.
A Son's Sacrifice follows the journey of Imran, a young American Muslim who struggles to take over his father's halal slaughterhouse in New York City. A first-generation American, Imran must confront his mixed heritage and gain acceptance from his father's immigrant community at the traditional storefront slaughterhouse. On the holiest day of the year, Imran must lead a sacrifice that will define him as a Muslim, as an American, and as a son.

QUEENS

The Georges of New York City
Produced by Arthur Barron, 1970, 58 min.
Each episode of Six American Families series documented the lives and travails of the members of an American family. Made in the '70s, these films are done in the cinéma vérité style. This episode features the Georges of New York City in Queens. The father of the household was a Black policeman in a time of marked civil and racial unrest. The effect this has on the lives of his family is investigated.

QUEENS

Chopshop
Ramin Bahrani, 2008, 84 min.
Chop Shop is the story of Alejandro, a twelve-year-old orphan in Willet’s Point, also known as the “Iron Triangle,” a vibrant, sprawling, industrial neighborhood teeming with auto-body repair shops, scrap yards, and garbage dumps on the outskirts of Queens, New York. Alejandro, like many young boys in the area, works at one of the many auto body repair shops that line the street. His sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales) moves in with him in the tiny room perched in the back of the shop where he works. Knowing that creating a better life for the two of them is his best bet at staying together, Alejandro helps her find a job in a food van cooking and selling meals to the workers in the Iron Triangle. With a mixture of childlike naiveté and adult ambition, Alejandro begins obsessively saving his money to buy a mobile-food van as the two dream about owning and running a small business of their own.

ALL CITY
@ St. Marks Church (Parish Hall)
131 East 10th St at 2nd Ave. New York, NY.

OUT OF THE GLOBAL CITY and RENT CONTROL: NYC DOCUMENTED AND IMAGINED
co-present (in association with the Left Forum):

Housing, Gentrification, Community

Spanish-English Interpretation & Childcare provided
Free and Open to the Public
RSVP TO: INFO@THEFOUNDRYTHEATRE.ORG
OR CALL: 212.777.1444

Some Place Like Home
Directed by Kelly Anderson, 2009, 40 min.
Deborah Tillman, a long time Fort Greene resident, walks through her neighborhood to point out shuttered “Mom & Pop” stores. She sends a message to developers: “You’re not just tearing down buildings; you’re tearing down the people, too!” Narrated by noted activist and author, Kevin Powell, Some Place Like Home highlights a community’s fight to protect its history, its culture and to determine its own future. Executive produced by Families United for Racial & Economic Equality (FUREE).

Rezoning Harlem
Directed by Natasha Florentino & Tamara Gubernat, 2009, 37 min.
A recently updated version of Rezoning Harlem follows longtime members of the Harlem community as they fight a 2008 rezoning that threatens to erase the history and culture of their neighborhood and replace it with luxury housing, offices, and big-box retail. A shocking expose of how a group of ordinary citizens, who are passionate about the future of one the city's most treasured neighborhoods, are systematically shut out of the city's decision-making process, revealing New York City's broken public review system and provoking discussion on what we can do about it.

Panel:

Caron Atlas, cultural organizer and community media pioneer, is director of Place + Displaced, a community mapping project of Fractured Atlas, and also of the Arts & Community Change program of the Pratt Center for Community Development. She has worked with several intiatives and organizations inlcuding Appalshop and Animating Democracy.

Representatives of FUREE which, for several years, have been organizing residents, business owners, and other stakeholders in Downtown Brooklyn and Fort Greene to fight against gentrification and for community-led development.

Natasha Florentino, Co-director of Rezoning Harlem.

More Panelists to Be Added

Out of the Global City is a project of the Foundry Theater in partnership with the Nation Institute and the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at CUNY Grad Center.

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Man On Wire
Dir. by James Marsh, 2008, 94 min.

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Man On Wire
Dir. by James Marsh, 2008, 94 min.

ALL CITY

OUT OF THE GLOBAL CITY and RENT CONTROL: NYC DOCUMENTED AND IMAGINED
co-present:

Small Businesses in Focus

Introduction:
Tom Agnotti Author of “New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate” and Professor in the Hunter College Department of Urban Affairs & Planning

Twilight Becomes Night
Directed by Virginie Alvine-Perrette, 2008, 28 mins.
Virginie Alvine-Perrette's Twilight Becomes Night captures the gradual disappearance of several mom-and pop stores in the city. New York, with its bodegas and small boutiques, could be the last frontier for independent business in the U.S. More than 200,000 small-businesses still exist in New York. But as chain drug stores and banks begin dominating Manhattan's avenues the future of NYC’s small businesses is uncertain.

Discussion to follow the film with small business owners in Harlem and around the city. Panel TBA.

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On the Bowery
Directed by Lionel Rogosin, 1957, 65 min.
A mix of documentary and scripted footage on the Bowery, New York City's skid row. Against a backdrop of men (and a few women) drinking in bars, talking and arguing, and sleeping on sidewalks, we have the story of Ray. He is younger and more vigorous than most on the Bowery. He arrives in Manhattan with a suitcase and a little money in his pocket. On his first night, he drinks himself into a stupor, falls asleep on the sidewalk, and is robbed of his suitcase. Over the next two days, we follow both Ray and the thief, who befriends him. Is there any hope Ray can get out of town and restart a life of work and sobriety, or is he stuck on the Bowery? Can the good thief help?

ALL CITY

OUT OF THE GLOBAL CITY and RENT CONTROL: NYC DOCUMENTED AND IMAGINED
co-present:

City as Canvas

Ruckus Manhattan
Directed by Many, 1976, 20 min.
Ruckus Manhattan documents a collaborative art project of the same name - a multimedia, sculptural representation of Manhattan built on the ground level of 88 Pine Street in Downtown Manhattan, 1976. The film chronicles the massive art project and the locations (Apollo Theatre, the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, the Chrysler Building, the Stock Exchange floor, Trinity Church, World Trade Center and the Staten Island Ferry) that inspired the sculptors' recreations. "Ruckus" captures the spirit of the film and the artwork it documents, but also the spirit of our film series and the city it documents.

Statues Hardly Ever Smile
A Chamba Production, St Clair Bourne, Stan lathan, Kent Garret and Charles Hobeson, 1970, 20 min.
A group of African American children experience African culture moving among the ancient art objects and interacting through a storyteller. Shot on location in the Brooklyn Museum. Print courtesy of ADI /CEFS (African Diaspora Images formerly Chamba Educational Film Services).

The Legacy of Lionel Rogosin and the Bleecker Street Theater
Readings from Lionel Rogosin's writing by son, Michael.

The Laundry Mat Project (Slide Show)
Rain Wilson, founder of this public art project, found in NYC’s laundry mats.

More Films and Speakers TBA

(Series Closing Night Reception)