Henry Street and Filmmaker Charles Lane at Metrograph
By Chelsea Jupin
Henry Street Settlement began the first of a series of events at new neighborhood hot spot Metrograph last night with a screening of Charles Lane’s Sidewalk Stories. The event was followed by a Q&A with Lane, moderated by Henry Street Settlement’s executive director David Garza.
Charles Lane’s Sidewalk Stories (1989) is an updated retelling of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, set in 1980s downtown New York City. The film, which stars Lane as well, is considered to be an important piece of social advocacy due to its frank depiction of homelessness in New York City.
In the Q&A that followed the screening, David Garza thanked Lane for his work, saying of the silent film, “I’ve never heard so much said with so few words.” The two discussed the making of the film and its legacy. Lane told Garza and the audience that he had hoped that Sidewalk Stories “would put a mirror to the ugly reality of homelessness.”
After the Q&A, Garza and Lane led a discussion group with high school students studying filmmaking at Brooklyn Lab School, a high school site of one of Henry Street’s Community Schools partnership programs.
Members of the Henry Street Settlement community attended the event including staff, clients, and Community Advisory Board members.
Henry Street Settlement will continue to host screenings of relevant films at Metrograph, which opened on Ludlow Street just this month. Metrograph is a new art house cinema that is “the ultimate place for movie enthusiasts” on the Lower East Side.
