Halifax

Screening; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

7:00pm
- 9:00pm
Monday April 13 2015

THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH (2010, Dir.Chad Freidrichs, 83′). It began as a housing marvel. Two decades later, it ended in rubble. But what happened to those caught in between? The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home. At the film’s historical centre is an analysis of the massive impact of the national urban renewal program of the 1950s and 1960s, which prompted the process of mass suburbanization and emptied American cities of their residents, businesses, and industries. Those left behind in the city faced a destitute, rapidly de-industrializing St. Louis , parcelled out to downtown interests and increasingly segregated by class and race. The residents of Pruitt-Igoe were among the hardest hit. Their gripping stories of survival, adaptation, and success are at the emotional heart of the film. The domestic turmoil wrought by punitive public welfare policies; the frustrating interactions with a paternalistic and cash-strapped Housing Authority; and the downward spiral of vacancy, vandalism and crime led to resident protest and action during the 1969 Rent Strike, the first in the history of public housing. And yet, despite this complex history, Pruitt-Igoe has often been stereotyped. The world-famous image of its implosion has helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoe’s creation. To re-evaluate the rumours and the stigma. To implode the myth.

Gentrification and the Arts of Resistance documentary film series, April/May 2015

Cities are growing and changing, but in whose interests and for whose benefit? These documentary films explore urban space, wealth, race, and the role of the arts, past and present, local and global.

Join us for provocative documentary films, followed by moderated discussion.

A collaboration betweenThe Radical Imagination Project and the Cinema Politica Network and the Halifax Public Libraries.

More information: http://radicalimagination.org/gentrification-and-the-arts-of-resistance

All screenings are held at the new Central Branch of the Halifax Public Library at 7pm and are free and open to the public.

Schedule

April 13: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2010)
April 27: My Brooklyn (2012) and Remember Africville (1991)
May 11: Portrait of Resistance: The Art and Activism of Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge (2011)

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