Plywood Renaissance

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TYPE: Documentary Feature
GENRE: Documentary
STATUS: Post-Production

LOGLINE

During the age of BLM, an unprecedented SoHo art movement catapulted five struggling painters into the spotlight, while healing NYC and preserving art from thieves.

SYNOPSIS

Momentous events in 2020 bring hundreds of artists to SoHo, NYC to paint murals of resilience and protest on plywood covered storefronts, transforming the neighborhood into an expansive impromptu art museum. Five artists battle personal struggles, betrayal, and art theft, while banding together to heal NYC through the power of art - echoing the movements that shaped SoHo decades earlier.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

I began filming “Plywood Renaissance” in June 2020, following three months of Covid lockdown, when I biked across the Manhattan bridge to see the condition of the city firsthand. What I saw when I arrived in SoHo was profound: the usually bustling neighborhood was completely covered in plywood, like a war zone. Yet, on those boards were poignant murals being created by hundreds of artists, working together to bring light to one of NYC’s darkest periods. I felt as though I was witnessing American history in the making and imagined that this art would one day be in museums, akin to pieces of the Berlin Wall being exhibited around the world. I set out to interview as many artists as I could, believing that anyone who came out in the middle of a pandemic to paint protest art in New York's summer heat, had something important to say. Starting as a small personal project, it was an attempt to stay creative and contribute to the BLM movement as protests filled the streets. As a filmmaker who often works as a “one-man band,” I had the experience and equipment necessary to film without a crew, which felt necessary given the pandemic. I biked from Brooklyn countless times to follow the artists as this renaissance unfolded in the very spot where decades earlier, artists like Basquiat, Warhol, and countless others breathed life into a dilapidated industrial neighborhood. I met filmmaker and organizer of many of the plywood artists, Maxi Cohen, on the streets. She shared the urgent motivation to document this time, so we began collaborating. As a longtime Soho resident, she provided historical context and served as my eyes on the street, filming milestones for which I couldn’t be present. As I got to know the artists, I was inspired by their passion and their visions for what art can do to heal a community. I felt a personal duty to amplify their voices, the film becoming about much more than just art; a vehicle to talk about the social issues of our time, from racism and prison reform, to homelessness and single parenthood. The project evolved from a small personal one to something much bigger than myself. In the process of making the film, I uncovered an organized ring of thieves who are currently in possession of hundreds of paintings from the movement, and we suspect are selling them without artist permission. A legal process is just beginning to recover the art, and my hope is that this film will aid in that process so the art can be seen where it deserves to be seen - in museums. If privileged to be selected for the fiscal sponsorship, my objectives would be to find a producer and/or donors to fund the remaining post-production costs and find an outlet to program it. Thank you for your consideration.

KEY CREW

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