A film by Su Friedrich
81 minutes, color, USA, 2012
This film is available for rental at Public Screenings.
Please send your inquiry to info@outcast-films.com.
A documentary of small changes evolves into an historical record
of New York. The resulting film is a melancholy, essayistic
requiem for a neighborhood and an entire way of life; it also
provides a case study of the rapid gentrification of our cities.
In 1989, together with a group of female friends, Su Friedrich
rented and renovated an old loft in Williamsburg, an unassuming
working-class district of Brooklyn. In 2005 this former industrial
zone was designated a residential area and the factories, manufacturers
and artists' lofts were priced out by property speculators lured
by tax breaks. Friedrich spent five years documenting with her
camera the changes in the area between East River and the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway. She shows the demolition of industrial buildings
and the construction of trendy new apartments for wealthy clients,
watching old tenants leave and new inhabitants arrive. As she
keeps meticulous record of developments, the extent and speed
of the upheaval becomes clear. Her own tenancy agreement expires
too and so her documentary images and trenchant commentary become
the tools of her growing anger.
View the Trailer:
what
they're saying
FILMMAKER
MAGAZINE
“Su Friedrich…
has made the most salient and personal film about Brooklyn’s
ever-changing face since Hal Ashby’s The Landlord
appeared in theaters some 43 years ago. GUT RENOVATION
is bound to polarize audiences. It’s a polemical
howl in the night, a desperately angry and sidesplittingly
funny look at one oh-so-mythologized neighborhood’s
transformation…[It’s] a film essay that is
of a piece with the work of heady French names like Godard
and Varda.” - Brandon
Harris, FILMMAKER MAGAZINE
THE
NEW YORK TIMES
øA Work in Progress, From the Inside OutÓ
øSu Friedrich
