Join us for a screening of the newly released documentary Emergent City, which captures one of the most intense community battles against real estate development in recent history. The screening will be followed by a conversation with filmmaker Kelly Anderson and community members featured in the film, who are also part of the Sunset Park is Not for Sale Oral History Project.

About the Documentary Film

Over a decade, within the borders of a single Brooklyn community district, a microcosm of American democracy emerges. Residents of Sunset Park face a tangled web of rising rents, a legacy of environmental racism, and the loss of the industrial jobs that once sustained their community. When a global developer purchases Industry City—a massive industrial complex on the waterfront—and begins to transform it into an “innovation district,” a battle erupts over the future of the neighborhood and of New York City itself.

Emergent City is an observational civic epic. It sheds light on power and process, illuminating systems and giving viewers a front row seat to the public and private spaces where the city is shaped. With extraordinary access, it tracks an ensemble of participants including the local council member, Industry City’s developers, and community members with divergent stakes. The film explores the profound intersections of gentrification, climate crisis, and real estate development and asks how change might emerge from dialogue and collective action in a world where too many outcomes are constrained by money, politics, and business as usual. For more information about the documentary film, click here.

Panelists 

Kelly Anderson, Director and Producer of Emergent City

Kelly Anderson is a Sunset Park-based documentary filmmaker whose most recent film is Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square (w. Ryan Joseph and Kathryn Barnier). Her 2012 film My Brooklyn, about the hidden forces driving gentrification, was broadcast on PBS’ America ReFramed. Kelly produced and directed Every Mother’s Son (PBS, 2004, w. Tami Gold), about mothers whose children were killed by police, which won the Tribeca Audience Award and aired on POV. She produced and directed Out At Work (HBO, 2000, w. Tami Gold), which premiered at Sundance. Kelly chairs the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College (CUNY).

Jay Arthur Sterrenberg, Director and Producer of Emergent City

Jay Arthur Sterrenberg is a New York City based director and editor. His documentary editing credits include Academy Award short-listed Dark Money (PBS, 2018), Emmy winning Trophy (CNN Films, 2018), Tribeca award-winning Untouchable (2016), Academy Award short-listed Netflix Original After Maria (2019) and the 2020 Netflix doc series Immigration Nation, which won a Peabody Award and Best New Documentary Series at the Independent Spirit Awards. Jay is a co-founder of the Sunset Park based Meerkat Media Collective. His short documentary Public Money (PBS, 2018) is an observed portrait of an experiment in participatory democracy in Sunset Park.

 
Marcela Mitaynes, Assembly Member representing 51st District in Brooklyn (To be confirmed)

Marcela Mitaynes is a Peruvian-American politician and tenant organizer, currently serving as a member of the New York State Assembly. She represents the 51st District as a Democrat, which includes Red Hook, Sunset Park, and northern Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Through her work with Neighbors Helping Neighbors, and with tenants throughout New York State, Marcela was instrumental in the passage of the historic Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019. This legislation dramatically and comprehensively strengthened the rights of tenants in rent-stabilized apartments to defend their homes and communities. Marcela is continuing to organize in the district and help build power for working class people. All New Yorkers deserve access to housing, health care and energy. We need to build a mass, working-class movement to win a future where working-class people have a chance to live dignified lives.