First Run Features is proud to announce the theatrical premiere of The Lost Village, a new documentary directed by Roger Paradiso. The film opens at the Cinema Village on October 19, 2018.
The heart of downtown Manhattan, Greenwich Village was famous for being a bohemian sanctuary for starving artists and college students who would go on to change the world’s culture. Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouac, Jimi Hendrix, Lady Gaga, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Judy Collins, Allen Ginsberg…the list goes on and on.
But more recently, the Village has turned into an overpriced hangout for tourists, cover bands and Wall Street hipsters. The university at the center of it — NYU — functions as an extremely wealthy real estate company that extracts outrageous tuition and fees from its students while buying up more and more land. Student debt is at an all-time high while student prostitution and suicide are on the rise.
With a provocative eye and fearless tone, The Lost Village explores the demise of the Village: the corporate take-over by NYU; the accelerating gentrification, where condos and townhouses nowadays sell in the tens of millions; the sky-high rent increases that are displacing the few remaining Mom & Pop shops; and the vanishing street artists who gave the Village its reputation. Ultimately, The Lost Village is the story of a place that is losing (or perhaps has already lost) its heart and soul.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS DURING CINEMA VILLAGE RUN (October 19 – 25, 2018)
. . .
Discussion: St. Vincent’s Hospital and Other Places I Remember
Topic: Closing of St. Vincent’s & Beth Israel Hospital and other historical and cultural icons of the Village.
Panelists: George Capsis (Publisher and Editor West View News) & Lincoln Anderson (Editor in Chief, The Villager and Villager Express)
Moderated by Jim Fouratt (West View News Reporter)
Saturday, October 20 at 2:45pm
Discussion: The Inside Story of What Is Going on in the Village
Topic: Caroline Benveniste’s In and Out column and Jim Fouratt’s Have You Heardcolumn.
Panelists: Caroline Benveniste (West View News Reporter) & Jim Fourrat (West View News Reporter)
Moderated by Roger Paradiso (Director of The Lost Village)
Saturday, October 20 at 6:45pm
Discussion: The Art of the Gouge: How NYU Squeezes Billions From Its Students and Where that Money Goes
Topic: NYU expansion, and NYU faculty and student issues with the Corporate University.
Panelists: Mark Crispin Miller (Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU) & Andrew Ross (Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and Director of American Studies Program)
Moderated by Jim Fouratt (West View News Reporter)
Sunday, October 21 at 2:45pm
Discussion: Where Have All the Artists Gone?
Topic: Displacement of artists and activists.
Panelists: Heidi Russell (Photographer, Founder of the International Women Artists’ Salon) & Sandy Hecker (UN Activist and Organizer)
Moderated by Jim Fouratt (West View News Reporter)
Sunday, October 21 at 6:45pm
Discussion: Resistance From the Pulpit
Topic: The church’s role in activism and resistance.
Panelist: Reverend Ed Chinery (Resistance Cinema at The Church of the Ascension)
Moderated by Jim Fouratt (West View News Reporter)
Monday, October 22 at 6:45pm
Discussion: Where Have all the Activists and Artist’s Gone?
Topic: Activism past and present at Judson Memorial Church.
Panelists Doris Deither (Community activist and artist) & Alison Greenberg (Employment attorney, Steering Committee of Human-Scale NYC)
Moderated by Jim Fouratt (West View News Reporter)
Tuesday, October 23 at 6:45pm
Discussion: Saving Mom & Pops
Topic: Struggling small businesses and mom and pop shops.
Panelists: Marnie Halasa (Former candidate for City Council who championed The Small Business Jobs Survival Act; Marnie has started a new group, Community Control of Land Use, to educate and collectively organize small businesses against intrusive development) & Peter Cetera (Small business owner of Red Eye Coffee)
Moderated by Jim Fouratt (West View News Reporter)
Wednesday, October 24 at 6:45pm
Discussion: Taking Back The Village & Saving It
Topic: Loss of culture and preservation of the Village.
Panelists: Anthony Gronowicz (Historian, Educator and Mayoral candidate for the Green Party) & Carol Yost (Former resident of the Village)
Moderated by Jim Fouratt (West View News Reporter)17