A careful camera observes a community performing the routine of their everyday lives, on the streets and inside the shops of Los Sures, New York. This routine environment is the stage for Rosemary’s 16th birthday, an unrepeatable event of a girl in transition. This short observational film intersects common rituals with a once-in-a-lifetime event, reflecting the passage of time in a tight-knit Dominican community. Through extreme close-ups, the camera plays the role of a sort of macro observer from the inside looking in, and sometimes looking out of, a densely layered and populated area where a community calls home.
Director’s Statement
The first time I walked on a crowded block of Havemeyer Street, time seemed to slow down.
People were chatting in front of hair salons, bodegas and the many shops on this block. Families were gathered on stoops, kids were playing ball, circles of youngsters were smoking, laughing and hanging by parked cars that blasted music. Men were playing dominoes as older men were taking their time to buy one dollar piraguas as they exchanged stories with the street vendor. There even was a preacher with his music band — he would alternate preaching with singing. There was intense, specific activity.
Everything seemed to have its own color, style and identity.
‘Rosemary’s Street’, focuses on one personal story enclosed in a single event that happens on this street.”
— Constanza Mirré
Team
Constanza Mirré
Constanza Mirré is a photographer and independent documentary producer. She is the author of Bares de Buenos Aires, a photo book published by Ediciones Lariviére in Buenos Aires Argentina and by Le Passage in Paris. She produced Argentina in the UK, a book published in 2008 by the Argentine Embassy in the UK. Published in print magazines internationally, Mirré has worked as a travel, film still and fashion photographer in New York City.
Emilia Bilińska
Emilia Emilia Bilińska was born in Bydgoszcz, Poland. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and in Film and Television Production at the National Film School in Łódź. She was a production manager at Wajda School in Warsaw, production assistant at the TR Warszawa theatre, assistant director for TV series, copywriter, translator, assistant curator, and contributor for Art Experts Magazine, EKRANy, and FilmPro. She has conducted interviews with Tadeusz Rolke, Tilda Swinton, Michael Obert, Reggie Watts, Pulp, Florian Habicht and covered film festivals including SXSW, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. She was among 12 filmmakers from around the world who were invited to participate in the UnionDocs Collaborative Program from 2012-13, where she directed her second documentary, The Other. Since September 2012, she has been based in New York where she works as a correspondent for several online outlets.
Tamer Hassan
With an appreciation for the intimacy necessary to produce compelling documentary work, Tamer Hassan has spent the last five years integrating himself into the countercultures of rural autonomous communities throughout the United States. His work from this practice has screened internationally at venues ranging from the Princeton Environmental Film Festival to the Tinai EcoFilm Festival in Goa, India. He has received grants and awards from The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, The Davis Foundation, and the Goldfarb Center for Civic Engagement. Hassan was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow, where he worked as an editor and cinematographer on several documentaries, screening at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight and winning best short documentary at the 2014 Brooklyn Film Festival.
Constanza Mirré
Constanza Mirré is a photographer and independent documentary producer. She is the author of Bares de Buenos Aires, a photo book published by Ediciones Lariviére in Buenos Aires Argentina and by Le Passage in Paris. She produced Argentina in the UK, a book published in 2008 by the Argentine Embassy in the UK. Published in print magazines internationally, Mirré has worked as a travel, film still and fashion photographer in New York City.
Emilia Bilińska
Emilia Emilia Bilińska was born in Bydgoszcz, Poland. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and in Film and Television Production at the National Film School in Łódź. She was a production manager at Wajda School in Warsaw, production assistant at the TR Warszawa theatre, assistant director for TV series, copywriter, translator, assistant curator, and contributor for Art Experts Magazine, EKRANy, and FilmPro. She has conducted interviews with Tadeusz Rolke, Tilda Swinton, Michael Obert, Reggie Watts, Pulp, Florian Habicht and covered film festivals including SXSW, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. She was among 12 filmmakers from around the world who were invited to participate in the UnionDocs Collaborative Program from 2012-13, where she directed her second documentary, The Other. Since September 2012, she has been based in New York where she works as a correspondent for several online outlets.
Tamer Hassan
With an appreciation for the intimacy necessary to produce compelling documentary work, Tamer Hassan has spent the last five years integrating himself into the countercultures of rural autonomous communities throughout the United States. His work from this practice has screened internationally at venues ranging from the Princeton Environmental Film Festival to the Tinai EcoFilm Festival in Goa, India. He has received grants and awards from The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, The Davis Foundation, and the Goldfarb Center for Civic Engagement. Hassan was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow, where he worked as an editor and cinematographer on several documentaries, screening at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight and winning best short documentary at the 2014 Brooklyn Film Festival.