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.
Diego Echeverria’s film skill­ful­ly rep­re­sents the chal­lenges res­i­dents of the South­side faced: pover­ty, drugs, gang vio­lence, crime, aban­doned real estate, racial ten­sion, single-parent homes, and inad­e­quate local resources. The com­plex por­trait also cel­e­brates the vital­i­ty of this large­ly Puerto Rican and Domini­can com­mu­ni­ty, show­ing the strength of their cul­ture, their cre­ativ­i­ty, and their deter­mi­na­tion to over­come a des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion. Beau­ti­ful­ly restored for the 30th anniver­sary pre­miere at the New York Film Fes­ti­val, this doc­u­men­tary is an invalu­able piece of New York City his­to­ry. (Union­Docs)

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Diego Echev­er­ria geb. in Chile, aufgewach­sen in Puerto Rico. Ab 1971 studierte er Film an der Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, New York. Er arbeit­ete als Fernse­hjour­nal­ist, u.a. für die Pio­niersendung „51st State“ von Jack Willis (Chan­nel 13 WNET).
Filme u.a.: EL LEGADO: A PUERTO RICAN LEGACY (1980), PUERTO RICO: A COLONY THE AMERICAN WAY (1981).