Host Andre Middleton speaks with CHRISTOPHER ALLEN, Founder / Executive Artistic Director of UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art about the film Los Sures, which is showing at the Northwest Film Center on Monday, April 25th. Comprised of predominantly working-class Puerto Rican and Dominican residents, Los Sures in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was in the early 1980s one of the poorest, most underserved neighborhoods in New York City, overcome by gangs, drugs, crime, and the many other travails of a modern American neighborhood in the late 20th century. Director Diego Echeverria, a graduate of the Columbia film school and a Chilean native who grew up in Puerto Rico, took to the streets and made this remarkable cinema verité documentary portrait of Los Sures and its remarkable inhabitants. Now, over thirty years later, the neighborhood has changed almost beyond recognition. In 2013, Brooklyn-based Uniondocs commissioned several response films to the original LosSures, a handful of which will screen as part of this larger program, and look at the neighborhood as it stands today. In tandem, the newly-restored Los Sures and the response films offer a very timely look at historical neighborhood dynamics as we in Portland go through much of the same turmoil.
Today joining me via telephone is Christopher Allen, Founder and Executive Artistic Director of Uniondocs, who will be in attendance for a presentation and Q&A about the Los Sures project next Monday but we’re getting a little preview with him today. Join us at 11:30 this morning for great conversation art as an archive as well as a lens on our society.
- KBOO