film

NorthEast Passage: The Inner City and the American Dream

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Producer(s)	Spencer Wolf, Cornelius Swart
Director(s)	Spencer Wolf, Cornelius Swart
Release Date	2002
Work In Progress	n
Runtime	54 min
Youth Media	n
Educational Materials	Yes

Film Description

NorthEast Passage is a feature length documentary about gentrification, community revitalization and affordable housing in the inner city of Northeast Portland, Oregon. All across American, as long neglected inner city neighborhoods begin to blossom with new investment, the racial and class fault-lines struck by old and new residents can often shake whole neighborhoods apart. NorthEast Passage is a provocative film that leaves the viewer understanding the need for tolerance in America.

The film documents the life of Nikki, an African American single mother, who struggles to improve her life in a neighborhood that is rapidly changing from a dangerous ghetto to middle class enclave. In the film public officials emphasize that as neighborhoods improve, the public must create affordable housing to offset the fact that some in the neighborhoods will be displaced by rising prices, also known as gentrification. Nikki, meanwhile is concerned only with the crime and drug dealing she faces everyday on her block, she sees gentrification as a cure to neighborhood crime. This clash between class, race, and the push to improve the neighborhood culminates when Nikki joins with the neighborhood's new white residents to fight the development of a proposed affordable housing complex on her block. A neighborhood long neglected suddenly explodes with conflicts that don\'t have easy answers. 54 minutes, color.

Official Site	http://www.northeastpassage.net
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Administrative Contact	Mediarights_Admin
Last Updated On:	May 22, 2012

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Related Issues	Criminal Justice, Economic Justice, Family & Society, Human Rights, Politics/Government, Racial Justice, African-American, Africa, Canada, Middle East