Dark Days
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"Dark Days" is a feature length documentary about a community of homeless people living in a train tunnel beneath Manhattan. The film depicts a way of life which is unimaginable to most of those who walk the streets above. In the pitch blackness of the tunnel rats swarm through piles of garbage and high-speed trains out of Penn station tear through the darkness.
Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens
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Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen explores how American movies have portrayed poor and homeless people from the silent era to today. It provides a novel kind of guide to social policy, exploring how ideas about poor and homeless people have been reflectedin popular culture and evaluating those images against the historical and contemporary reality. Richly illustrated and examining nearly 300 American-made films released between 1902 and 2015, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens finds and describes representations of poor and homeless people and theplaces they have inhabited throughout the century-long history of U.S. cinema. It moves beyond the merely descriptive to deliberate whether cinematic representations of homelessness and poverty changed over time, and if there are patterns to be discerned. Ultimately, the text offers a preliminaryresponse to a handful of harder questions about causation and consequence: Why are these portrayals as they are? Where do they come from? Are they a reflection of American attitudes and policies toward marginalized populations, or do they help create them? What does this all mean for politics andpolicymaking? Of interest to movie buffs and film scholars, cultural critics and historians, policy analysts, and those curious to know more about homelessness and American poverty, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens is a unique window into American politics, history, policy, and culture - it is an entertainingand enlightening journey.
How I got over
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HOW I GOT OVER follows 15 formerly homeless and/or incarcerated women as they craft an original play, based on their harrowing true-life stories, to be performed one-night-only at The Kennedy Center. As observers of their creative process, we bear witness to their transformations from victim to artist, and to the performing arts’ capacity to heal trauma, create connection, and start a conversation.
The throwaways
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THE THROWAWAYS tells the story of homeless filmmaker, activist and co-director Ira McKinley, who channels his experience of living on the streets through the lens of a video camera. By using his unique perspective, Ira aims to pull the curtain back for viewers and expose how the current economic crisis is having a devastating effect on those who are in greatest need. A gritty, firsthand look at a reality most would rather turn away from, THE THROWAWAYS challenges viewers to bear witness and confront the daily struggles and hopes of those living on the fringes of a society that has rejected and forgotten them.