Living Los Sures

Living Los Sures features a nicely restored transfer of Diego Echeverria's gritty 16mm 1984 documentary Los Sures, which was shot in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. Now much gentrified, the locale was then one of the poorest parts of New York City, inhabited mostly by Puerto Ricans who called the area “Los Sures” (which translates as “The Souths” or “The Southside”). Echeverria offered a general portrait, but focused on three women and two men: Marta, a single mother trying to raise five children on welfare checks and food stamps; the older Ana Maria, mourning a lost son through Santeria-like religious ritual; Evelyn, who has escaped poverty by working for a social-welfare organization; Tito, a petty thief who complains about lack of opportunity and winds up in jail; and Cuso, an older man who works in construction and wouldn't think of leaving the area. Los Sures offers an incisive ethnographic study of a place that earlier residents would barely recognize today, although the problems they faced three decades ago will be familiar to people now living in other areas of the Big Apple. Los Sures has been little seen since its limited release in 1984, but it is the centerpiece of the cinematic project called Living Los Sures, which also includes short films capturing the neighborhood in later years. Six of them appear here, ranging from brief impressionistic pieces to longer portraits of the area as a whole or sketches of individual residents. Offering an interesting slice of ethnographic history, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)