Emergent City - PATOIS 2025

Emergent City (Jay Arthur Sterrenberg, Kelly Anderson 2024) - Through the story of organizing in one neighborhood, a look at the intersections of gentrification, climate crisis and development. Over a decade, within the borders of a single Brooklyn community district, residents face a tangled web of rising rents, a legacy of environmental racism and the loss of the industrial jobs that once sustained their community. When a global developer purchases a massive industrial complex on the waterfront - and begins to transform it into an innovation district, a battle erupts over the future of the neighborhood and of New York City itself. Emergent City is an observational civic epic. It sheds light on power and process, illuminating systems and giving viewers a front row seat to the public and private spaces where the city is shaped. With extraordinary access, it tracks an ensemble of participants and asks how change might emerge from dialogue and collective action in a world where too many outcomes are constrained by money, politics and business as usual. 99 min. 

Post-screening discussion with director Kelly Anderson, producer Brenda Avila Hanna and organizers from the film Carlos Menchaca and Antoinette Martinez.

Pre-Screening performance by Sabine McCalla.