July 26, 2010, 8pm

Sternberg Park (map)

Films that feature the characters, textures, and changes in North Brooklyn.

This is our neighborhood at its best, its most complicated and its most beautiful. It has our people from a wizened life-long denizen to a precocious transplant, even a schizophrenic man who yells at passersby. It has our places from a construction site filled with the destructive boom of a backhoe to the blissful oasis of rooftop. These films explore how the community celebrates itself and tackles the issues of loss, renewal, and coexistence.

Featuring

Brooklyn Love by Chris King

A film intended to be the visual equivalent of a Manhattan jackhammer to the head, and the a beautiful end of the day sigh. A love letter to Brooklyn.

Study For “A Moral Society” by Russel Fong, Victor Jeffreys II & CK Swett

The filmmakers had seen (and heard) Lawrence around for years before finally mustering the courage to chat with him. And discovered that beneath the bellicose veneer (a symptom of his extreme paranoid schizophrenia) there was actually a lot more that connected us than divided us. He had a mom and dad and siblings. He’d fallen in love and fathered four children. He’d served in Vietnam and made his share of mistakes. He laughed easily and was a natural raconteur. He was worried about the future and hoped for a better world in which to live. Through their afternoon together, the filmmakers captured on film the spirit of a man both deeply disturbed and misunderstood, but a man like us nonetheless. They hope the resulting portrait inspires others to approach Lawrence with, if nothing else, a measure of empathy and understanding.

Open House by Diane Nerwen

Readily visible under the thin veneer of real estate ads pushing Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s future as a destination for the moneyed, yet “hip”, classes is an urban renewal project on a scale not seen since Robert Moses’ “slum” clearance of the 1960’s. Documenting the brutal nature of the development spree which occurred as a result of the neighborhood’s re-zoning from light manufacturing/residential to the loosening of codes that allowed for forty story towers on the waterfront, Nerwen’s video offers stark evidence against the cheerful notion that the unrestricted laws of free markets are “good for everyone”. With images of a neighborhood being literally torn apart by outside developers capitalizing on a frenzied housing market, and locals under pressure to “sell out” while the price is right, this work documents aspects of an incredible drama that has been woefully underreported in the mainstream media..

L to Canarsie by Alice Cox

A, who am I and what am I doing here? film. Ella, an aspiring photographer, follows her musician boyfriend, Raj, to NYC. With his unexpected death their first night, the film follows Ella’s experience of coming out of her pain to connect with her unfamiliar environment and community.

Daisy Blooming by Jeremy Lopez, Joshua Carrero, and Manuel Delacruz of New Children New York

Daisy, a teenage girl who has been neglected by her mother, turns to the media’s influence. In doing so she isolates herself from everyone around her, and as a result, she manages to numb her emotions through overexposure to the violence of horror films. She is then unable to register violent acts as wrong. Danny, her only friend who knows nothing of all of this, tries his best, although stupidly, to make her smile. But how exactly will Daisy react to this?