Evento

LAST DAYS OF CHINATOWN

LAST DAYS OF CHINATOWN
Directed by: Nicole Macdonald
65 min (US)
2018

Detroit's Cass Corridor, one of the roughest areas in the city for the past 100 years, is now experiencing a complete overhaul, as long-awaited development finally sweeps the area. Known as a center of drugs and prostitution, the area once branded the red-light district of the city was also called Fire Alley, in recognition of its status as the arson capital of Michigan. The final incarnation of Detroits Chinatown was officially established in the Corridor in 1963, but the new millennium has seen the demise of this enclave.

As over half the neighborhood has now burned or been demolished, Last Days of Chinatown looks at who and what remains in the Corridor. We hear how residents survived, how they sometimes didn't, who fled the area and why -- as gentrification now redefines the Corridor -- long home to the poor and disenfranchised as well as to the artists and visionaries of the city.

PRECEDED BY

SLAVE ONE
MANHATTAN PREMIERE
Directed by: Juan Leguizamon
18 min (US)
2017 Animation, Documentary

The film follows the life and legacy of the Kung Fu Judge as activists attempt to save his forgotten Brooklyn theaters from demolition.

The rise and fall of Judge John Phillips, a black Lawyer, Civil Court Judge, Martial Artist and aficionado Filmmaker whose legacy was shattered by corruption and gentrification at the heart of Brooklyn's African American community.

At the peak of racial tensions in New York City the Judge founds the Slave Theater and empowers young activists who are today key figures in the fight against racial and social injustice, among them Al Sharpton and Cornel West.

By the end of the 90's the political machine begins a relentless crackdown on dissent and the Judge is prosecuted by the Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Artists, Lawyers and neighbors recount the strange and daring life of the Kung Fu Judge, as activists attempt to save his iconic theaters from demolition.