via Metrograph
Couldn’t get enough of Los Sures, the time capsule documentary of life in Puerto Rican Williamsburg back in 1984? You weren’t alone. The film, originally slated to run a week at Metrograph, the Lower East Side’s new arthouse film mecca, grossed $25,000 its first week and was extended for a second week. Playing mostly full houses, it eventually netted a holy-moly $60,000.
Now your friends out in the boonies may get a chance to marvel at the film too, unearthed and restored by UnionDocs only recently. Today Oscilloscope Laboratories (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Samsara, Meek’s Cutoff) announced it has acquired the rights to the film with plans to show it all across the country.
Sure, people out in Ohio or wherever might not really understand how strikingly different the drug and poverty-ridden Williamsburg of only 32 years ago is from the post-gentrification cocktail bar-filled neighborhood we know today, but they’ll definitely still appreciate the director Diego Echeverria’s deft cinematography and eye for intimate details. The film offers a rare view into the lives of five people struggling to get by or to make a difference in their neighborhood, including a young man who steals cars to make money, a woman supporting her five kids on welfare, and a community activist fighting against drugs. Intermixed with interviews and verité scenes from their lives, footage of vibrant street life brings viewers seamlessly into the neighborhood’s cultural scene.
“It is wonderful to see Los Sures join Oscilloscope’s catalogue of incredible titles,” Christopher Allen of UnionDocs said in a press release. “Like us, they are literally based in the neighborhood that the film explores. They understand the power of this film both as a tale of poverty in American cities and as a celebration of the community’s resilience.”