#4: We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings.

Arts Bank Cinema is proud to present the BPP Ten Point Program Film Series, hosted the first Sunday of each month in partnership with members of the IL Chapter of the Black Panther Party. Each month’s program will use cinema and dialogue to explore one point of the Black Panther Party’s ten point platform. Facilitated community discussions centering activism, resistance, and the ongoing struggle will be held following the films. For May, we explore point four, “We Want Decent Housing, Fit for the Shelter of Human Beings.” through the following titles. Organizers and public housing tenants from CHI – The Chicago Housing Initiative, will be in attendance to discuss the films and the current state of equitable housing in Chicago following the screening.

CASE AGAINST LINCOLN CENTER, 1968 12 min. More than 20,000 Latino families were displaced to make way for Lincoln Center, home to the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Symphony. This film examines the patrons of art” complex (corporations and wealthy families) and the culture displayed there. Juxtaposing the atmosphere of Lincoln Center with the vibrant street culture of a displaced neighborhood, the film correctly predicts the process by which the West Side was to be turned into a high-rent area for the upper middle class.

70 ACRES IN CHICAGO, 2016 53min Twenty-years in the making, 70 Acres in Chicago tells the story of the Cabrini Green public housing development located on the most hotly contested 70 acres of land in Chicago. With its prime central location, Cabrini Green was initially hailed as a public housing triumph, then more recently demonized as an urban disaster. It was demolished, bit and bit, beginning in 1995, and repackaged as a “mixed income” development. The mainly black residents of Cabrini were forced out, though there is still a remnant of Cabrini in the row houses. The few residents who were able to move into the highly relegated mixed income settlement, are negotiating through an unwelcoming cultural territory. These encounters, between the former Cabrini residents, and the new white middle-class homeowners comprise the very real tensions of a newly constructed community in transition. The film uses personal stories, expert commentary, and informative history to celebrate the spirit of a unique community and to mourn its betrayal and destruction.

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Tags: Black Panther Film Series: 70 ACRES IN CHICAGO, Chicago, Rebuild Foundation, South Shore, Stony Island Arts Bank