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By Liza Bear
New York, April 21 2017--Matt Tyrnauer, director, speaks on the making of CITIZEN JANE: BATTLE FOR THE CITY which opens tonight at the IFC. Now that I've seen it: don't miss! New Yorkers owe a lot to Jane--sharp, observant, resourceful, determined. An inspiration for activists and would-be activists, this visually arresting (not only lots of demolition, but priceless scenes of women with prams protesting) is well-argued, tough and still timely.
WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH MATT TYRNAUER HERE
The film examines closely the tactics employed in the 60s by feminist writer/activist Jane Jacobs--dismissed by the male urban planners as "a housewife"-- to defeat several ill-conceived plans by inhumane czar Robert Moses to destroy downtown New York neighborhood life--notably by extending Fifth Avenue through Washington Square and to build a Lower Manhattan Expressway through SoHo.
It also presents a comprehensive view of the history of sterile and brutish post war urban planning tracing it back to a misappropriation of Le Corbusier designs for office buildings and transferring them to housing projects --the tower in a park--for low-income people. Filmed by Liza Béar
Note: CITIZEN JANE: BATTLE FOR THE CITY premiered at the Tribeca International Film Festival in 2016 it was also shown at Hot Docs.
Liza Bear produces Nothingofficial on Youtube. She also writes for Bomb Magazine. Liza is a member of The Women Film Critics Circle.
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