�

Gut Renovation premieres at the reRun Gastropub Theater in DUMBO Brooklyn Friday April 19th- Thursday April 25th. For information on tickets, click here.

Su Friedrich’s Gut Renovation focuses on something all New Yorkers can relate to one way or another: gentrification. After living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for two decades, Su Friedrich and her partner Cathy Quinlan saw their neighborhood turn into a constant stream of condos and construction as their friends, neighbors and small business were pushed out by rent hikes and rezoning plans. Through her anger and curiosity about Williamsburg’s rapid shift, Friedrich filmed the gentrification process for years (since 2005), documenting affluent newcomers as well as residents with roots in the area.

In a Filmmaker Magazine interview, Friedrich discusses audience reactions to her personal ode and requiem to Brooklyn. “I think that if you’re going to speak very strongly on a subject and from a particular vantage point, there are bound to be people who will disagree with you.” A hot topic such as gentrification will undoubtedly get viewers thinking about their own roles in “Condoburg”-type neighborhoods. But Friedrich isn’t the only filmmaker strongly opposing plans that end up hurting residents that built lives in Brooklyn. In this hour-long radio show with Bill DeFasio, Su Friedrich is joined by Kelly Anderson, director of My Brooklyn, a film with similar themes to Gut Renovation. Friedrich and Anderson take different approaches to showing their objections to luxury housing and destruction of communities, but both agree there needs to be solutions to keep small businesses and residents safe from being pushed out.

The filmmaker stated in an interview with The Brooklyn Rail, “I think I recognize my limitations; my concerns as a filmmaker are different than my concerns as a citizen. Though I have been involved in a lot of different activist groups, I never feel like my films are part of that process.” Although Friedrich is well informed about rapid changes Williamsburg has gone through and is still going through, this documentary is meant to be a personal observation on what it means to be a Brooklyn waterfront resident then and now. In an ArtInfo video interview with Friedrich, she delves into business and redevelopment plans in the ‘90s that created the Brooklyn we see now, but what really stands out is her longing for a place where artists and communities can come together without fearing their neighborhood will become unnoticeable. Watch the interview below: