New FUREE "Some Place Like Home" Screening
If you haven’t seen it yet, come out for this weekend’s screening of FUREE’s fantastic documentary, Some Place Like Home
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Out of the Global City:
Housing/Culture/Gentrification
Saturday, April 18th
St. Mark’s Church, Parish Hall
3PM-6PM
Some Place Like Home
Executive Producer: FUREE
Director: Kelly Anderson
Co-Director/Producer: Allison Lirish Dean
2009, 40 min.
Deborah Tillman, a long time Fort Greene resident, walks through her neighborhood to point out shuttered “Mom & Pop” stores. She sends a message to developers: “You’re not just tearing down buildings; you’re tearing down the people, too!” Narrated by noted activist and author, Kevin Powell, Some Place Like Home highlights a community’s fight to protect its history, its culture and to determine its own future. Executive produced by Families United for Racial & Economic Equality (FUREE).
Rezoning Harlem
Directed by Natasha Florentino & Tamara Gubernat
2009, 37 min.
A recently updated version of Rezoning Harlem follows longtime members of the Harlem community as they fight a 2008 rezoning that threatens to erase the history and culture of their neighborhood and replace it with luxury housing, offices, and big-box retail. A shocking expose of how a group of ordinary citizens, who are passionate about the future of one the city’s most treasured neighborhoods, are systematically shut out of the city’s decision-making process, revealing New York City’s broken public review system and provoking discussion on what we can do about it.
Amanda Alexander is a doctoral student in international and African history at Columbia University and a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, South Africa). She worked as a Research Fellow at CCS for two years where she facilitated media, writing and photography workshops for activists and conducted research primarily focused on issues of race and representation within post-apartheid struggles for land and housing. Ms. Alexander is an associate producer and news editor for Pacifica Radio’s Wake Up Call (WBAI 99.5 FM), and in 2007, she produced a radio documentary on racial profiling of Brooklyn youth. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Asian and African Studies, Feminist Africa, We Write, Mail & Guardian, Pambazuka News, and several edited volumes. In 2006, she co-edited a special double issue of the Journal of Asian and African Studies with the theme of “Problematizing Resistance.” She is co-editor, with Andile Mngxitama and Nigel Gibson, of Biko Lives: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
Caron Atlas is a Brooklyn-based consultant and cultural organizer working to support and stimulate arts and culture as an integral part of social change. She is the project director of Place + Displaced, a community mapping project of Fractured Atlas, and also of the Arts & Community Change program of the Pratt Center for Community Development. Additionally she directs the Arts & Democracy Project of State Voices and is a faculty member in New York University’s Art and Public Policy program. Caron worked many years at Appalshop, the Appalachian media center; was the founding director of the American Festival Project, a national coalition of activist artists; is a consultant to foundations, including Ford and Nathan Cummings; and also worked with, amongst others, National Voice, Animating Democracy, and the Cultural Blueprint for New York City.
Steven Cosson is the founding Artistic Director of The Civilians. With The Civilians: co-writer and director of This Beautiful City (Humana Festival, Center Theatre Group, Studio Theatre, Vineyard Theatre); co-writer and director of BROOKLYN: At Eye Level; co-writer/director of Paris Commune (Public Theater’s PublicLAB series); writer/director of Gone Missing (Barrow Street Theatre – New York Times’ Top 10 of 2007); writer/director of (I Am) Nobody’s Lunch (Edinburgh Fringe Festival – 2006 Fringe First); director of Canard, Canard, Goose?. He’s also directed The Civilians’ work at A.R.T., Actors Theatre of Louisville, La Jolla Playhouse, HBO’s Aspen Comedy Festival, The MoMA, and London’s Gate Theatre and Soho Theatre. Cosson has directed and developed new plays at theaters including Hartford Stage, Soho Rep, O’Neill Conference, and New Harmony Project. He won an Obie in 2004 for the work of The Civilians.
Representatives of Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), which, for several years, have been organizing residents, business owners, and other stakeholders in Downtown Brooklyn and Fort Greene to fight against gentrification and for community-led development.
Monique Ndigo Washington, of the Coalition to Save Harlem. a progressive movement of individuals and organizations who desire to reclaim, preserve and protect the community of the Village of Harlem this Historic Black Community for ourselves and our children. We represent community-based organizations, religious institutions, civic groups, local small businesses, artists and residents.