Third Shift

Once producing half of the nation’s sugar, the Domino Sugar Refinery was an icon of the industrial work available in the Southside of Williamsburg. Within a year of making Third Shift, part of the building will be demolished for new housing and the rest renovated for commercial use.

Two former workers who live only blocks away return to their days at Domino and visit the now derelict space that was part of their lives for 30 years.

Director’s Statement

I first entered the Domino Sugar Brooklyn Refinery in December 2012 when I participated in an illicit photo safari organized by Wanderlust Projects. I saw what many others saw in the photos that circulated on the internet in those months: a mixture of molasses and dust coating cavernous floors, peeling paint, and dilapidated machinery. Ten years had weathered the place and made it look more remote and inaccessible, but I knew that Domino was a part of the recent past, that in the neighborhood, maybe even just a few blocks away, I could find former workers who remember the place as it had been.

My producer Mike Vass and I first met Frank, a former Domino Sugar worker, at the Los Sures Senior Center. Frank had worked at Domino from 1970 to 1998 and still lives a block away from the refinery. He led us to Johnny, another former employee who lives on South 2nd and runs the Berry Street Community Garden. Despite it being a particularly cold day in February, we found Johnny relaxing beside an electric heater in a shack at the rear of the garden where he spends every morning.

In the spring that followed we continued talking to Frank and Johnny and revisited the refinery itself. They talked about the days when the Williamsburg waterfront was busy with industrial work that ran in three shifts, 24 hours a day. We also learned that the Domino Sugar workers constantly struggled with the management over a fair contract until the refinery’s eventual closure in 2004. Employees staged multiple strikes, one in 1998 that lasted for almost two years, the longest in New York City’s history.

That same spring, Two Trees Management, a real estate development company, won final approval from the city for a high-density luxury condominium complex that will sit on the former Domino site. Demolition had already begun as we completed filming. As the future of the Williamsburg waterfront follows the now familiar development model (in which empty industrial space becomes valuable residential property) it is my hope that Third Shift fills the ’empty’ space with the memory of the workers who once spent their lives there.”

— Anthony Simon

Screenings and Awards

Living Los Sures Shorts on the Lawn, Southside Connex Street Festival, Brooklyn, NY 2014
Brooklyn Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY, 2014
Free University NYC: Subtleties of Resistance, Brooklyn, NY, 2014
Sweet Work: Shorts on Labor at the Domino Brooklyn Refinery, UnionDocs, Brooklyn, NY, 2014
Living Los Sures: Preview in the Park, Brooklyn, NY, 2013

Best Short Documentary, Brooklyn Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY, 2014

Team

Anthony Simon

Anthony Simon works with fiction and non-fiction filmmaking, music production, and street art. He works professionally as a freelance video editor with clients including Maysles Films, The Guardian, and The Yes Men. Simon received his BA at The Evergreen State College and was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow. He is currently developing a feature-length documentary about his family’s involvement in the major industries of Kauai, Hawaii. The story begins with his Great Grandfather’s immigration from the Philippines to work in sugar production.

Michael Vass

Michael Vass is a filmmaker and writer based in New York. His award-winning films have screened at festivals and galleries, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art. He was the 2012 winner of the Canadian Art Foundation Writing Prize, and his writings have appeared in Cinema Scope, Cineaction, Canadian Art, C Magazine, MACHETE, and The Rusty Toque. Michael received his BFA from Simon Fraser University and his MFA from York University. He’s an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Residency.

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.

Anthony Simon

Anthony Simon works with fiction and non-fiction filmmaking, music production, and street art. He works professionally as a freelance video editor with clients including Maysles Films, The Guardian, and The Yes Men. Simon received his BA at The Evergreen State College and was a 2012-13 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow. He is currently developing a feature-length documentary about his family’s involvement in the major industries of Kauai, Hawaii. The story begins with his Great Grandfather’s immigration from the Philippines to work in sugar production.

Michael Vass

Michael Vass is a filmmaker and writer based in New York. His award-winning films have screened at festivals and galleries, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art. He was the 2012 winner of the Canadian Art Foundation Writing Prize, and his writings have appeared in Cinema Scope, Cineaction, Canadian Art, C Magazine, MACHETE, and The Rusty Toque. Michael received his BFA from Simon Fraser University and his MFA from York University. He’s an alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre’s Directors’ Residency.

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.

“Domino – 1989” Found Footage

A time capsule of home video vignettes from 1989 filmed by Domino Sugar employee Kenny Malcom that illuminates the diversity of the Domino workforce and the empowerment they felt at the time. Featured is a union meeting dispute between the Domino workers and the ILA Union organizers as well as a picket line in front of the Domino site.
 

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Credits

Featuring Juan “Johnny” Mendez and Franciso “Frank” Ortiz

Directed and Edited by Anthony Simon

Producer: Michael Vass
Cinematography: Ian Johnson, Tamer Hassan
Additional Cinematography: Anthony Simon, Shannon Carroll
Sound Recording: Michael Vass
Research Consultant: Grace de la Aguilera

UnionDocs Collaborative Studio Director: Toby Lee

UnionDocs Artistic Director: Christopher Allen

2012-2013 Collaborative Fellows: Andrew Hinton, Anthony Simon, Beyza Boyacioglu, Constanza Mirré, Emilia Bilińska, Federica Sasso, Jen Epstein, Maria Rosa Badia, Michael Vass, Parul Wadhwa, Sebastian Diaz Aguirre, Shannon Carroll, Tamer Hassan