The Greenpoint Film Festival starts tomorrow, and here is our shortlist of recommended movies for you.
The promise of a park in Bushwick Inlet has intrigued Greenpoint residents for a long time. So it is appropriate that festivities begin on Thursday (3/17) at 8 pm with Can Video Bring Us Our (Missing) Park, a presentation of video footage with a live discussion about our ongoing struggle.
Moving to another property-related topic, do you think the housing market in Greenpoint is getting outlandish? Keep in mind that one of the nice things about our neighborhood is it still has a ton of houses where the owner rents out an entire ground floor. So you can still be young and fun and not paid very well, and as long as you are willing to live with other people, you can have a nice backyard and the spiritual warmth of a real house.
For the opposite circumstance, watch Superjednostka on Friday night (3/18). This documentary reveals life inside a “SuperUnit,” a housing complex that can hold 3,000 people on its 15 floors. The elevators only stop every three floors so residents have to navigate a maze of hallways and stairs to get to their apartments. Here’s the trailer.
Actually, that makes living there look kind of fun, like being in The Shining. And since it’s filmed in Poland, it will give you something to chat about with our local community.
For Saturday (3/19), I like the thematic promise of Becoming Bulletproof, a documentary about a troupe of differently abled kids who put on a costume Western.
My uncle’s friend runs a similar program, where he uses theater to help struggling kids focus and work as a team, and also to spur their imagination. It is really heartening to see the joy it brings them.
And many famous actors say that what pulled them into acting was being able to escape from cruelties faced in the real world by getting to “be” someone else for a while. Historically, one way this functioned was to provide an escape from mid-century anti-gay prejudice.
For Sunday (3/20) I recommend a series of Brooklyn-related shorts starting at 5:30 pm. It includes Juno, about the beautiful winter storm we had that brought Greenpoint to a standstill. Filmmaker Jeffrey Enkler assembles a three-minute tour of eerily empty streets set to original music from composer Jamin Winans.
Another short in Sunday’s program, Greenpoint 2016, delves into the history of Greenpoint and Newton Creek environmental problems and remediation proposals.
Tickets for the festival are quite reasonably priced at $10 a show. Day passes are $18, and a full festival pass is $56. Tickets and passes can be purchased here.
Click on the movie links above for specific show times and locations.