Come see the film that inspired UnionDocs’ Living Los Sures project on the big screen. The original film from 1984, Los Sures, will be screened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Rose Cinemas on Sunday, July 26th in two showings: 2pm and 6:30pm.
Tickets for this unique opportunity to watch the film in theaters are available on the BAM website here. Following the second showing, there will be an after party (details TBD).
Los Sures, Diego Echeverria, USA, 1984, 16mm, 56m
In the early 1980s, Diego Echeverria took a 16mm camera into the streets of the Southside of Williamsburg, then a primarily Puerto Rican neighborhood and one of the city’s poorest, most crime-ridden areas. Still, amidst the urban blight, Echeverria finds a thriving street culture in which music, breakdancing, and graffiti abound.
Los Sures skillfully represents the challenges of its time: drugs, gang violence, crime, abandoned real estate, racial tension, single-parent homes, and inadequate local resources in Brooklyn’s Los Sures neighborhood. Yet Echeverria’s portrait also celebrates the vitality of this community, showing the strength of their culture, their creativity, and their determination to overcome a desperate situation. Los Sures is both an invaluable record of pre-gentrification Brooklyn and an ode to a community’s resilience.
Diego Echeverria is a filmmaker born in Chile and raised in Puerto Rico. He studied film at Columbia University and was for many years a producer/director of News and Current Affairs documentaries for WNET and WNBC in New York, and for NBC News and CBS News in network television. Later, as an independent producer, he directed documentaries for PBS and for European television and developed projects on health promotion, education and in support of social programs in the national and international arenas. Based in Latin America, he was for several years Regional Advisor on Communications for UNICEF, overseeing programs directed to the wellbeing of children and women. Through his company, Terra Associates, he produced a wide array of multimedia, television programs, and audio visual projects targeted for classroom use, health organizations and corporate sponsors. His work in television was awarded two Emmys.
BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) is a multi-arts center located in Brooklyn, New York. For more than 150 years, BAM has been the home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas—engaging both global and local communities. With world-renowned programming in theater, dance, music, opera, film, and much more, BAM showcases the work of emerging artists and innovative modern masters.