USA / 2003 / 90mins / Documentary / English

As the new residents restore the beautiful but run-down homes, black homeowners must fight to hold onto their community and heritage. The inevitable clashes expose prejudice and self-interest on both sides, as well as the common dream to have a home to call your own. What happens when gay white people move into a black working-class neighborhood?

Linda Goode Bryant

Linda Goode Bryant is an award-winning producer, writer, and director of experimental short films, videos, and documentaries. Bryant co-produced, directed, and edited Flag Wars (2003), a cinema vérité look at what happened in a working class black neighborhood over the course of 4 years as white gays moved to the area. Flag Wars won the jury award for Best Documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, the Filmmaker Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and launched the 2003 season of P.O.V. on PBS. Bryant's other work includes Hurricane Teens, a segment on Split Screen, a weekly cable television show aired on BRAVO / The Independent Film Channel; My Am, an experimental narrative, and The Business of Being an Artist, a documentary on the impact the art market has on artists and their creativity. She also directed Mustafa (2004) and Can You See Me Now? (2006). Bryant is a recipient of grants, awards, and fellowships for her film and video work. These include an Artist Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Anonymous Grant(s) from the Arts Development Committee, and project grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, and the Ettinger Foundation. Prior to filmmaking, Bryant was the Founding Director of Just Above Midtown, Inc. (JAM), a non-profit interdisciplinary artists space in Manhattan. She is also the Founder and President of Active Citizen Project and Project EATS, a neighborhood-based project that uses art, urban agriculture, partnerships, and social enterprise to sustainably produce and equitably distribute essential resources within and between our communities. Bryant has a B.A. in painting from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She has a Masters Degree in Business from Columbia University in New York and has completed study for a Masters Degree in Art History from the City College of New York. Learn More

Laura Poitras

Laura Poitras is is a filmmaker, journalist, and artist. She is the director of My Country, My Country (2006), the first part of a trilogy of films about America post 9/11. The film was nominated for an Academy Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Emmy Award. The second film, The Oath (2010), received a Gotham Award for Best Documentary, the Cinematography Award at Sundance, and the Directing Award at Cinema Eye Honors. The 9/11 Trilogy was selected for the 2012 Whitney Biennial. She is the recipient of a 2012 MacArthur Fellowship. Her video installation, O’Say Can You See (2011), premiered at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center and had its New York premiere at the Ronald Feldman Gallery. Poitras received a Peabody Award and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Flag Wars (2003), a film made with Linda Goode Bryant. She was executive producer of Ra’anan Alexandrovicz’ The Law In These Parts (2011), winner of the Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Jury Prize. Her films have been shown at numerous film festivals, and have received support from ITVS, the Sundance Institute, Vital Projects Fund, Creative Capital, American Documentary|POV, the Tribeca Film Institute, and the Bertha BRITDOC Documentary Journalism Fund. Her films are distributed by Zeitgeist Films. Her 2015 documentary, Citizenfour, about Edward Snowden, won the Academy Award and BAFTA Best Documentary Feature awards that year. She has attended the Sundance Institute Documentary Storytelling Lab as both a fellow and creative advisor. She has taught documentary filmmaking at Yale University, and was a visiting artist at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Before making films she worked as a professional chef. Learn More