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Watch: Living Los Sures‘ Short, Eric, Winter to Spring
Eric, Winter to Spring from UnionDocs on Vimeo.
The third and final short from UnionDocs’ Living Los Sures project premiering here at Filmmaker is Danya Abt’s Eric, Winter to Spring. UnionDocs describes the project like this:
After losing his brother two years ago, cab driver Eric Martine quit using drugs and began a new chapter in his life. Although he still visits some of the same punk-rock haunts and friends, Eric is re-mapping his life onto the city he knows by turning his experiences into prose poems and trying to draw meaning from an extreme past. (2014)
The short won Best Short Documentary at the 2015 Brooklyn Film Festival.
Living Los Sures is a multi-platform documentary consisting of numerous short films inspired by Diego Echeverria’s 1984 doc on the Southside of Williamsburg, Los Sures. Echeverria’s doc is currently being screened at the Metrograph in New York until April 28. Tickets are available here.
From UnionDocs, here is info about both works:
Living Los Sures
Produced over five years by 60 artists at UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, Living Los Sures is an expansive project about the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Known by its long-term Latino residents as Los Sures, the neighborhood was one of the poorest in New York City in the late 70s and early 80s. In fact, it had been called the worst ghetto in America. Today, it is the site of a battle between local identity and luxury lifestyle. With the restoration of Los Sures, a brilliant work of cinéma vérité filmmaking as a starting point, the project has developed into a collection of 40 short films, the interactive documentary 89 Steps, and the cinematic people’s history Shot by Shot, demonstrating new possibilities for collaboration between an arts institution and its surrounding community to collect memories and share local culture.
Los Sures
Dir. Diego Echeverria, USA, 1984, 16mm, 56m
Diego Echeverria’s film skillfully represents the challenges residents of the Southside faced: poverty, drugs, gang violence, crime, abandoned real estate, racial tension, single-parent homes, and inadequate local resources. The complex portrait also celebrates the vitality of this largely Puerto Rican and Dominican community, showing the strength of their culture, their creativity, and their determination to overcome a desperate situation. Beautifully restored for the 30th anniversary premiere at the New York Film Festival, this documentary is an invaluable piece of New York City history.
Eric, Winter to Spring Credits:
Directed by Danya Abt
Featuring Eric Patrick Martine.
Co-director: Joyce Wong
Additional camera: John Larson
Consultant: Janna KyllästinenProduced by UnionDocs
UnionDocs Collaborative Studio Director: Toby Lee ; UnionDocs Artistic Director: Christopher Allen; 2013-2014 Collaborative Fellows: Alexandra Lazarowich, Anne-Katrine Hansen, Arisleyda Dilone, Chloe Zimmerman, Daniel Wilson, Danya Abt, Elizabeth Warren, Janna Kyllästinen, John Larson, Joyce Wong, Samantha Richardson, Stanzi Vaubel.
