THE WIZARD OF OZ      is the film that best speaks to the mission of the Brooklyn Young Filmmakers Center (BYFC). The protagonists of our story are working class adults and teens, who often doubt they have the brains, courage and heart – or the connections and understanding of how things operate – to make a career in the film industry (or in any of the many creative freelance industries in New York City).

OUR COMMUNITIES ARE IN TROUBLE     We know about the effects of poverty, anger, illiteracy and violence. But what do we know about the effects of isolation, defeatism, and boredom? Increasingly in New York City people who are struggling economically are becoming surrounded in their neighborhoods by people who are wealthy. How does this impact on someone’s sense of self-worth?

WE NEED TO INSPIRE      intelligent conversations, creativity, positive risk-taking, and a sense of purpose and connectedness. What could be a more fun way of doing this than taking people to the movies in a whole new way – from the “inside” of how films are made – by giving them an opportunity to work as part of the crew on a low budget film.

COMMUNITY FILMMAKING     is Brooklyn Young Filmmakers yellow brick road and our OZ is Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is developing a Community Filmmaking model to put diverse community members together in production assistant teams to work on the “no-budget” narrative films of emerging filmmakers.

COMMUNITY BRIDGING PROJECT      In order to develop local support for our Community Filmmaking Project, Brooklyn Young Filmmakers is establishing the Fort Greene Information X-Change Project . You can keep up with BYFC and learn more about Fort Greene and its residents at:

http://fginfox.blogspot.com

The BYFC website has received funding from JPMorgan Chase Regrant Program
administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC)