LOGLINE

WEST SIDE FAMILIA chronicles the untold history of minorities resisting cultural erasure in Upper West Manhattan told by a quirky Puerto Rican-led ‘70s biker crew.

SYNOPSIS

Through intimate portraits of this tight-knit community, WEST SIDE FAMILIA follows the story of a long-established Puerto Rican-led motorcycle crew and community care group grappling with the preservation of their public traditions and cultural identity in the hyper-gentrified neighborhood of Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

I use my practice as a culture journalist and filmmaker to highlight the lesser-known histories of my people that have significant relevance to present-day political or cultural conversations. I’m a Black, Puerto Rican (or Nuyorican), lesbian, and third-generation New Yorker from the Upper West Side, tackling stories about any and each of these worlds, usually using the life story of charismatic, entertaining, and thought-provoking community leaders who are keepers of their community histories. I often highlight community leaders that are using the wisdom of past ancestors or elders to inform their current initiatives, like a group of rappers in Tulsa, Oklahoma using the wisdom of Black Wall Street’s circular economy to build up their ecosystem of local creative businesses. I choose histories that I think should be more widely known because of the themes within them that often revolve around radical community care, creative problem-solving, resisting oppression, and crafting new narratives of our history. And I make them more widely known by choosing local stories with national significance, like the Tulsa rappers grappling with the aftermath of the Black Wall Street massacre on the 100th anniversary in 2021 while Trump and other presidential candidates were speaking to the city’s role in our national story. The central character of this current film, Chino Familia, is primarily a local leader but his life story touches on many key relevant city-wide and national movements from squatters’ rights to Puerto Rican liberation to pioneering hip-hop culture. After writing in national newsrooms and producing high-profile podcasts, I want to use my skills for spotting and pitching stories as a freelancer to find ways to tell the more nuanced or never-before-told stories that wouldn’t get the green light at bigger institutions without development. I listen to people and help figure out how to tell their story in a way that does it justice while making it intriguing for outside audiences. And then, if there’s alignment, I use my connections to figure out how to get the story distributed on the biggest platforms possible that make them feel celebrated (like I did with the Tulsa rappers’ story on The New Yorker Radio Hour). Above all, my goal is to make my people proud of themselves for all that they’ve contributed to politics and culture, rewriting ourselves more fairly and fantastically into the story of this country.

KEY CREW

Taylor Hosking - Director + Producer

Taylor Hosking is a journalist and producer who started off writing about Black and LGBTQ culture movements in The Atlantic and VICE newsrooms. Then, as a podcast producer she lead-produced multiple audio documentary projects as one-off feature stories and as limited series episodic projects for clients like Netflix, NPR, Amazon's Audible and Sony. She also sold and lead-produced original audio documentary ideas to HBO and The New Yorker. Taylor has also done screenwriting work, including rewriting a feature film script for Spike Lee's 40 Acres and her original screenwriting has made her a finalist for screenwriting fellowships run by Cord Jefferson (American Fiction, Watchmen, Succession) and Mike Gayou (Insecure, Ginny & Georgia).

Mohammad Rahman - Editor

Mohammed has the lead editor of the IBM feature docuseries The Uncharted and edited many branded content videos for high-profile clients like Showtime, Amazon, Verizon, and Morgan Stanley. He’ll be largely jazzing up the pacing, transitions and visual design.

Emir Lewis - Consulting Editor

Emir Lewis has decades of documentary editing experience for both film and TV. He’s also an Associate Arts Professor at NYU. He’s presently editing on TV series Independent Lens and previously he’s been an editor for the Netflix doc Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives. Emir will be helping largely on the story edit.

Cristal Jefferson - Director of Photography

Cristal has been a full-time DP at VICE for five years now and counting, shooting for all of their digital verticals as well as for VICE News on HBO and VICE on Showtime. She’s also shot videos for Them., Teen Vogue and Glamour.

Liat Rubin - Story Producer

Liat Rubin has been the story producer on Radical Media and MGM+'s Hollywood Black series hosted by Justin Simien (Dear White People), as well as HBO Max's Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground.

Betsy West - Consulting Editor

Betsy West is an emmy-winning longtime producer of 60 minutes documentaries who also directed the RBG documentary.