Films A to Z
Gut Renovation
- Runtime:
- 81 min.
- Year of Production:
- 2012
- Country:
- Amerika
- Director:
- Production Company:
- Outcast Films
- Berlinale Section:
- Panorama
- Berlinale Category:
- Documentary Film
In 1989, together with a group of female friends, Su Friedrich rented and renovated an old loft in Williamsburg, an unassuming working-class district of Brooklyn. In 2005 this former industrial zone was designated a residential area and the factories,manufacturers and artists' lofts were priced out by property speculators lured by tax breaks. Friedrich spent five years documenting with her camera the changes in the area between East River and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. She shows the demolition of industrial buildings and the construction of trendy new apartments forwealthy clients, watching old tenants leave and new inhabitants arrive. As she keeps meticulous record of developments, the extent and speed of the upheaval becomes clear. Her own tenancy agreement is up too and so her documentary images and trenchant commentary become the tools of her growing anger. A documentary of small changes evolves into an historical record of New York. The resulting film is a melancholy, essayistic requiem for a neighbourhood and an entire way of life; it also provides a case study of the rapid gentrification of our cities.
BIOGRAFIE Su Friedrich
Born in New Haven, Connecticut to a German mother, she studied art and art history in Chicago and at the Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1996 she was a guest of the Berlinale Panorama section with HIDE AND SEEK. Her documentaries have won several awards at international film festivals. Her films are in collectinos at the MoMA, New York and Centre Pompidou in Paris. She lives in New York and teaches at Princeton University.
FILMOGRAFIE Su Friedrich (selection)
2012 Practice Makes Perfect
2012 Gut Renovation
2011 Conservation 101
2008 From The Ground Up
2005 Seeing Red
2004 The Head Of A Pin
2002 The Odds Of Recovery
1996 Hide And Seek
1993 The Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too
1993 Rules Of The Road
1991 First Comes Love
1990 Sink Or Swim
1987 Damned If You Don‘t
1984 The Ties That Bind
1982 But No One
1981 Gently Down The Stream
1980 I Suggest Mine
1979 Scar Tissue
1979 Cool Hands, Warm Heart
1978 Hot Water