UnionDocs

What happens when you lose something on the subway in New York? Chances are you’ll run into the wise, gentle, and unofficial ambassador of the Transit Authority, Sonny Drayton. Through his humor and intimate personal knowledge of the subway, Sonny invites us to consider what it means to lose and be lost underground, often the last stop for those who’ve fallen through the social safety net and have nowhere else to go. “Last Stop for Lost Property” questions how we value the artifacts of our lives: big and small, cherished and dismissed, tangible and existential.

SANDWICHED is a short documentary film about Abdulmotaleb, who lives in two realities at the same time: on the surface, he’s the friendly neighborhood bodega guy, but he’s also a refugee from Yemen’s civil war whose wife and children are still stuck back home.

After 17 years in business, La Villita Bakery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn was forced to close its doors. A victim of rising rents and rapid gentrification, this family owned business was a staple of the working class community that once could afford to live in the area. Chronicling the final days of this beloved bakery, The Last Bread (2013) captures the death of yet another small business in an increasingly homogeneous New York City. La Villita was located on the corner of Grand street and Bedford Ave, the division between the North and the Southside of Williamsburg.

Of Memory & Los Sures (2011) is a hybrid animated documentary film featuring oral histories of longtime residents of Los Sures, a neighborhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Voices of longtime residents of Los Sures, a mostly Puerto Rican neighborhood, are juxtaposed with images suggesting a recently disappearing past. The film weaves their stories, reflecting unique glimpses into collective memory of a place undergoing rapid changes. Through explorations of urban space, the film unearths fragments of history and culture, and recreates those memories through video, photography, archival documents and animation.

An example of a very extended practice in New York City, a city where apparently there is no place anymore for low income and working class people. The detention of Josh and Amron Israel opens a space for hope

“Why are you recording us?”, “Why are you all green?”,”The price is better, it doesn’t necessarily mean the orange is better.”, “This is creepy.” I’ll wrap my words in paper bags is a mute green screen suit wandering Chinatown as an empty surface waiting to be filled.