I Was Here First

In the 1990s, the seemingly abandoned industrial areas of Williamsburg, Brooklyn created a unique haven for New York City’s famous avant-garde art scene. Twenty years later, Williamsburg’s artsiness has made it one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country. Having been pushed to further-out neighborhoods, artists are uncomfortably confronting their role in creating the very process that displaces them. I Was Here First  (2015) follows 3 prominent ex-Williamsburg venues, taking a critical look at the future of experimental art in a city whose soaring rental market is driving some of its best artists out in search of more welcoming places.

 

Screenings and Press

– DOC NYC 2015
– Presenting “I Was Here First”: See What Gentrifying Williamsburg Was Like in the Early 90s by Brooklyn Magazine

Director’s Statement

The film strikes a stark contrast to the neighborhood’s South Side of Diego Echeverría’s 1984 film, Los Sures, which inspired it. I Was Here First paints an almost post-gentrification picture of the once heavily Puerto Rican neighborhood, now populated by a second- and third-wave of mostly white artists and increasingly very wealthy condo owners. The very title points to the irony of the subjects’ condition. Rather than delving in nostalgia, the two films seen together illustrate a cycle of change in the neighborhood that seems driven by an unstoppable gentrifying force.

I Was Here First is a unique part of the mosaic of the Living Los Sures documentary project that tells the story of how quickly one neighborhood can change completely, reinventing itself—for better or worse—time and time again.

— KATHERINA MACHALEK & ADAM GOLUB

Team

Katherin Machalek

Director

Katherin is a self-taught filmmaker, videographer and photographer based in Brooklyn, whose work seeks to blur the borders of narrative and experimental documentary. She enjoys collaborating with music composers and considers sound a great inspiration for her creations. In May 2014, Katherin released her first feature documentary CLIM8 at the Altitudes Festival in Switzerland, which is being distributed by Les Disques du 7ème Ciel on DVD and vinyl in summer 2015. In 2015, Katherin co-directed two shorts, The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog and Was Here First, for the Living Los Sures interactive documentary project. She is coordinator of the New York Docs Film Fatales collective and directed her first fiction feature in summer 2015 with two Fatales members.

Adam Golub

Director

Is an Israeli-American filmmaker who began making films when they were still being shot on tape (imagine that!). His shorts screened at the San Francisco Frameline LGBT Film Festival in 2006 and 2007. He’s told stories of young dancers, shot countless flash mobs, and reported on the water-logged art galleries in post-Sandy New York City. Adam has a particular interest in arts and culture as a measure of a successful and robust society. Likewise, his participation in activist movements against Israeli occupation has reaffirmed his desire to report on injustice in an attempt to foster a more equitable world. He completed his B.A. at UC, Berkeley in Social Theory and recently completed his Masters of Science at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism in the Documentary Film Program.

Chelsi Bullard

Editor

Chelsi Bullard is an independent media artist based in Harlem, NY. Her producing credits include Nine-Story Mountain, a feature film generously supported by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG, the Institute of British Geographers) and the Scientific Exploration Society. Her editing credits include Prayers of the Ancient Ones, a feature film broadcast on PBS in Northern California via the National Educational Telecommunications Association. In 2012, she directed and produced a short film, Feeling of Renewal, and it has placed as a ‘Finalist’ at Tricycle’s Buddhafest Shorts Showcase in Washington, DC, and was an official selection at both the Culture Unplugged online film festival and the Jaipur Pink City Contest hosted by the Jaipur International Film Festival in India. She is currently in pre-production for her first feature film, Revealing Faces. In all of her work, Chelsi is interested in telling the stories of marginalized peoples and communities, and particularly stories concerning people of color.

Katherin Machalek

Director

Katherin is a self-taught filmmaker, videographer and photographer based in Brooklyn, whose work seeks to blur the borders of narrative and experimental documentary. She enjoys collaborating with music composers and considers sound a great inspiration for her creations. In May 2014, Katherin released her first feature documentary CLIM8 at the Altitudes Festival in Switzerland, which is being distributed by Les Disques du 7ème Ciel on DVD and vinyl in summer 2015. In 2015, Katherin co-directed two shorts, The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog and Was Here First, for the Living Los Sures interactive documentary project. She is coordinator of the New York Docs Film Fatales collective and directed her first fiction feature in summer 2015 with two Fatales members.

Adam Golub

Director

Is an Israeli-American filmmaker who began making films when they were still being shot on tape (imagine that!). His shorts screened at the San Francisco Frameline LGBT Film Festival in 2006 and 2007. He’s told stories of young dancers, shot countless flash mobs, and reported on the water-logged art galleries in post-Sandy New York City. Adam has a particular interest in arts and culture as a measure of a successful and robust society. Likewise, his participation in activist movements against Israeli occupation has reaffirmed his desire to report on injustice in an attempt to foster a more equitable world. He completed his B.A. at UC, Berkeley in Social Theory and recently completed his Masters of Science at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism in the Documentary Film Program.

Chelsi Bullard

Editor

Chelsi Bullard is an independent media artist based in Harlem, NY. Her producing credits include Nine-Story Mountain, a feature film generously supported by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG, the Institute of British Geographers) and the Scientific Exploration Society. Her editing credits include Prayers of the Ancient Ones, a feature film broadcast on PBS in Northern California via the National Educational Telecommunications Association. In 2012, she directed and produced a short film, Feeling of Renewal, and it has placed as a ‘Finalist’ at Tricycle’s Buddhafest Shorts Showcase in Washington, DC, and was an official selection at both the Culture Unplugged online film festival and the Jaipur Pink City Contest hosted by the Jaipur International Film Festival in India. She is currently in pre-production for her first feature film, Revealing Faces. In all of her work, Chelsi is interested in telling the stories of marginalized peoples and communities, and particularly stories concerning people of color.

Credits

Directed by Adam Golub and Katherin Machalek

Producer: Christopher Allen, Lucila Moctezuma, Adam Golub and Katherin Machalek

Cinematographer: Adam Golub and Katherin Machalek

Editor: Chelsi Bullard

UnionDocs Collaborative Studio Director: Lucila Moctezuma

UnionDocs Artistic Director: Christopher Allen

2014-2015 Collaborative Fellows: Emanuele Andreoli, Irene Bartolomé, Chelsi Bullard, Mariangela Ciccarello, Tessa Rex, Sofia Geld, Adam Golub, Sophie Hamacher, Sarah Kerr, Zack Khalil, Marina Lameiro, Michela Monte, Katherin Machalek