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TRAILER
ABOUT
Over a decade, within the borders of a single Brooklyn community district, a microcosm of American democracy emerges. Residents of Sunset Park face a tangled web of rising rents, a legacy of environmental racism and the loss of the industrial jobs that once sustained their community. When a global developer purchases Industry City - a massive industrial complex on the waterfront - and begins to transform it into an “innovation district,” a battle erupts over the future of the neighborhood and of New York City itself.
Emergent City is an observational civic epic. It sheds light on power and process, illuminating systems and giving viewers a front row seat to the public and private spaces where the city is shaped. With extraordinary access, it tracks an ensemble of participants including the local council member, Industry City’s developers and community members with divergent stakes. The film explores the profound intersections of gentrification, climate crisis and real estate development, and asks how change might emerge from dialogue and collective action in a world where too many outcomes are constrained by money, politics and business as usual.
PURCHASE
EDUCATIONAL USE
We provide DVDs and streaming rights to educators, community groups, government agencies, public libraries, museums and businesses - from a 14 day rental to a life of file streaming option. You may also watch the film on Kanopy through your educational institution or public library.
“Emergent City is not a polemic, nor does it fall into the “all sides” trap of equivocation. It’s curious and patient, taking the time to understand its subject. It leaves enough wiggle room for the audience to make up its own mind, a kind of nonfiction Rorschach test to help us illuminate how we really think about everything from housing costs to climate change.”
“This was a really great film for urban planners! The conversation went on past the venue’s closing time. Highly recommended for professional development or other events.”
“An absorbing study...you can see the architecture of how modern cities are designed and who they are made for.”
SCREENINGS
UPCOMING SCREENINGS
APRIL 28, 2026
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (organized by Western Queens CLT)
45-50 Van Dam Street, LIC Queens
6:00-8:30pm. Filmmaker Q&A and community conversation to follow. Free and open to the public.
PAST SCREENINGS
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL (World Premiere) - June 11-13, 2024
DC/DOX (DC Premiere) - June 15, 2024
BIG SKY FILM FESTIVAL - February 17, 2025
DCTV's Firehouse Cinema, NYC - April 2025 *Theatrical Release*
Maysles Documentary Center, NYC - July 2025 *Theatrical Release*
Roxie Theater, San Francisco - July 29 & August 9 2025 *Theatrical Release*
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september 2024
CLIMATE FILM FESTIVAL • UPROSE • ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN FILM FESTIVAL • DIALOGUES DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
october 2024
HEARTLAND FILM FESTIVAL • THE NEW SCHOOL NY
november 2024
NEXT CITY SOLUTIONS FEST • ST. LOUIS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
february 2025
BIG SKY FILM FESTIVAL
march 2025
OMAHA FILM FESTIVAL
march 2025
PATOIS FILM FESTIVAL
may 2025
URBAN LAND INSTITUTE, Desert Breeze Community Center, Las Vegas, NV • TROPIC CINEMA, Key West, FL • JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER, Pleasantville, NY
august 2025
POV/NATIONAL PBS BROADCAST • ENY COMMUNITY LAND TRUST / ENY COALITION FOR COMMUNITY ADVANCEMENT, New York NY • SUNSET STOOP, Sunset Park, Brooklyn NY • JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER, Pleasantville, NY
october 2025
ARCHITECTURE FILM FESTIVAL, Rotterdam • BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY, Sunset Park Branch • SPEKTRUM FILM FESTIVAL, Warsaw
november 2025
BUSHWICK STARR (Community Board 4 and El Puente), Brooklyn
march 2026
ARCHITECTURE FILM FESTIVAL, Budapest • COMMUNITY BOARD 7, Brooklyn • MIXTECA, Brooklyn • DATA DOCS (Firehouse Cinema) • OPEN HOUSE NY (Brooklyn Public Library) • Skyfire Environmental Film Festival (Arizona) • COMMUNITY BOARD 14, Brooklyn • FOOD X HOUSING CONFERENCE (Fordham University, Bronx NY)
PRESS
“The best New York City-based documentary in a decade.”
“a vividly thrilling story about democracy”
“Emergent City is an excellent nonfiction film, and instantly relatable.”
“Emergent City is not a polemic, nor does it fall into the “all sides” trap of equivocation. It’s curious and patient, taking the time to understand its subject. It leaves enough wiggle room for the audience to make up its own mind, a kind of nonfiction Rorschach test to help us illuminate how we really think about everything from housing costs to climate change.”
“An absorbing study...you can see the architecture of how modern cities are designed and who they are made for.”
PRESS COVERAGE
"Emergent City" Shows Us the Power of Saying "No" - a review by Max Rivlin-Nadler, Hell Gate
A Brooklyn Neighborhood Fights for Its Future in a New Documentary - a review by Kathy Ou, Hyperallergic
Emergent City - a review by Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
DC/DOX Film Festival Comes Into Its Own This Weekend - a review by Alan Zilberman, Washington City Paper
“Tribeca 2024 Review: “Emergent City” Brings Urgency to a Slow-Motion Socioeconomic Crisis” - a review by Stephen Saito, The Moveable Feast
MORE PRESS COVERAGE >
FILMMAKERS
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Director/Producer
Kelly Anderson is a Sunset Park based documentary filmmaker whose most recent film is Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square (w. Ryan Joseph and Kathryn Barnier). Her 2012 film My Brooklyn, about the hidden forces driving gentrification, was broadcast on PBS’ America ReFramed. Kelly produced and directed Every Mother’s Son (PBS, 2004, w. Tami Gold), about mothers whose children were killed by police, which won the Tribeca Audience Award and aired on POV. She produced and directed Out At Work (HBO, 2000, w. Tami Gold), which premiered at Sundance. Kelly chairs the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College (CUNY).
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Director/Editor
Jay Arthur Sterrenberg is a New York City based director and editor. His documentary editing credits include Academy Award short-listed Dark Money (PBS, 2018), Emmy winning Trophy (CNN Films, 2018), Tribeca award-winning Untouchable (2016), Academy Award short-listed Netflix Original After Maria (2019) and the 2020 Netflix doc series Immigration Nation, which won a Peabody Award and Best New Documentary Series at the Independent Spirit Awards. Jay is a co-founder of the Sunset Park based Meerkat Media Collective. His short documentary Public Money (PBS, 2018) is an observed portrait of an experiment in participatory democracy in Sunset Park.
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Producer
Brenda is a Mexican filmmaker based in California. She is a recent Rockwood/Just Films fellow and part of the inaugural cohort of DOC NYC’s “Documentary Industry New Leaders.” Brenda’s work has been funded by ITVS, the Redford Center, the Ford Foundation, BAVC and the Central Coast Creative Corps. She was the first team lead for Equity and Representation at New Day Films and is currently producing three documentary films, one also as a first-time director. Brenda is an active member of BGDM, Color Congress, and the Video Consortium Mexico. She is a professor at UCSC and a board member of the Watsonville Film Festival.
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Executive Producer
Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning director and cinematographer based in New York City. His documentary Union, which won a Special Jury Award at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, is a cinéma vérité account of efforts to unionize the first Amazon fulfillment center. His documentary Crime + Punishment won a Special Jury Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and was shortlisted for the Academy Award. His films High Tech, Low Life and The Surrender were released on POV and Field of Vision respectively. Maing is a US Artists Fellow, a Sundance Institute Fellow, an NBC Original Voices Fellow and a recipient of the IDA's Courage Under Fire Award, shared with the whistleblowers of the NYPD12.
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Executive Producer
Carrie Lozano is President and CEO of ITVS. She was formerly director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film and Artist Programs, and she launched and directed the International Documentary Association’s Enterprise Documentary Fund. She was a senior producer of the investigative series Fault Lines at Al Jazeera, where her team garnered an Emmy, a Peabody and several Headliner Awards. Lozano led BAVC Media’s MediaMaker Fellowship and was a lecturer in the Documentary Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Weather Underground, the live cinema piece Utopia In Four Movements, and she produced, directed and edited Reporter Zero. Her 2016 documentary The Ballad of Fred Hersch is a portrait of one of today’s foremost jazz pianists.