Next City Event: Film Screening: “My Brooklyn” with director Kelly Anderson

Join Scribe Video Center and Next City for a screening of the documentary My Brooklyn on Tuesday, April 9 at International House Philadelphia. My Brooklyn follows director Kelly Anderson‘s journey, a self-characterized Brooklyn gentrifier, to understand the forces reshaping her neighborhood. Watch the film trailer.

The event will also feature the Scribe short film The Taking of South Central…Philadelphia. Watch a clip from the film and learn more about it here.

Following the screening, participate in a conversation about cities and gentrification with Kelly Anderson, Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media studies at Hunter College and director, producer, and editor of My Brooklyn. Additional panelists include: Lois Fernandez, founder of the Odunde street festival which celebrates Africanized people around the world; and neighborhood organizers Gary Broderick and Ociele Hawkins, residents of Philadelphia’s Point Breeze neighborhood and members of the Point Breeze Organizing Committee.

My Brooklyn documents the redevelopment of Fulton Mall, a bustling African-American and Caribbean commercial district that – despite its status as the third most profitable shopping area in New York City – is maligned for its inability to appeal to the affluent residents who have come to live around it. As a hundred small businesses are replaced by high rise luxury housing and chain retail, Anderson uncovers the web of global corporations, politicians and secretive public-private partnerships that drive seemingly natural neighborhood change. The film’s ultimate question is increasingly relevant on a global scale: who has the right to live in cities and determine their future?

Directed and produced by Kelly Anderson and Allison Lirish Dean, My Brooklyn includes interviews with Brooklyn residents, business owners, journalists, activists, artists, planners, historians, elected officials, and developers. The film has been in production since 2006, and was shot in locations from Downtown Brooklyn, to Williamsburg, Park Slope, and Bed-Stuy. In addition to important contemporary footage, the film features a rich tapestry of archival material, including photographs by Jamel Shabazz from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

Learn more about the making of the film at mybrooklynmovie.com.

Tickets: Admission is $10, $8 students/seniors, $5 Scribe and IHP members. Purchase advance tickets online here.

About Scribe: Celebrating 30 years, Scribe Video Center, founded in 1982, is a media arts organization that provides training in all aspects of digital video, film, audio, and web-based production. Scribe offers instructional workshops to adults and youth. Scribe also works with community groups to produce media that explores issues of concern. scribe.org.