Co-directors Jay Arthur Sterrenberg & Kelly Anderson compelling and informative 
documentary EMERGENT CITY tales place 
over a decade, within the borders of a single Brooklyn community district, a microcosm of American democracy emerges. Residents of Sunset Park face a tangled web of rising rents, a legacy of environmental racism, and the loss of the industrial jobs that once sustained their community. When a global
developer purchases Industry City — a massive industrial complex on the waterfront — and begins to transform it into an “innovation district,” a battle erupts over the future of the neighborhood and of New York City itself. EMERGENT CITY is a meticulously crafted civic epic. It sheds light on power and 
process, illuminating systems and giving viewers a front-row seat to the public and private spaces where the city is shaped. With extraordinary access, it tracks an ensemble of participants, including the local council members, Industry City’s developers, and community members with divergent stakes. The film explores the profound intersections of gentrification, climate crisis, and real estate development and asks how change might emerge from dialogue and collective action in a world where too many 
outcomes are constrained by money, politics, and business as usual. Co-directors Jay Arthur Sterrenberg and Kelly Anderson join us to talk about their commitment, professional and personal to document a story that is playing out across America and much of the world regarding residential displacement in a world where massive hedge funds and corporate real estate projects take priority over the interests of the people live and work in local communities.
For more go to: emergentcitydoc.com
The theatrical premiere of directors Kelly Anderson (My Brooklyn, Chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College, CUNY) and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg (co-founder of the Meerkat Media Collective), Emergent City opens in U.S. theatres starting Friday, April 25th (New York’s DCTV Firehouse Cinema) after world premiering at Tribeca Festival 2024 (Spotlight Documentary) and screening at DC/DOX and Big Sky Documentary Film Fest among other festivals.
About the filmmaker – Kelly Anderson is a Sunset Park based documentary filmmaker whose most recent film is Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square (w. Ryan Joseph and Kathryn Barnier). Her 2012 film My Brooklyn, about the hidden forces driving gentrification, was broadcast on PBS’ America ReFramed. Kelly produced and directed Every Mother’s Son (PBS, 2004, w. Tami Gold), about mothers whose children were killed by police, which won the Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award and aired on POV. She also produced and directed Out At Work (HBO, 2000, w. Tami Gold), which premiered at Sundance and won a GLAAD Best Documentary award. From 2015-17 she co-chaired the cooperative distribution company New Day Films. Kelly is currently the Chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies at Hunter College (CUNY).
About the filmmaker – Jay Arthur Sterrenberg is a New York City based director, and editor. His documentary editing credits include Academy Award short-listed Dark Money (PBS, 2018), Emmy winning Trophy (CNN Films, 2018), Tribeca award-winning Untouchable (2016), Academy Award short-listed Netflix Original After Maria (2019) and the 2020 Netflix doc series Immigration Nation, which won a Peabody Award and Best New Documentary Series at the Independent Spirit Awards. Jay is a co-founder of the Sunset Park based Meerkat Media Collective. His short documentary Public Money (PBS, 2018) is an observed portrait of an experiment in participatory democracy in Sunset Park.
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“The best New York City-based documentary in a decade.” – Max Rivlin Nadler, Hell Gate
“An old-school documentary that tells a story by presenting and arranging information and expecting you to meet it halfway rather than having everything spoon-fed to you.” Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
“‘An absorbing study…you can see the architecture of how modern cities are designed and who they are made for.” – Stephen Saito, The Moveable Feast
“‘Emergent City is not a polemic, nor does it fall into the “all sides” trap of equivocation. It’s curious and patient, taking the time to understand its subject. It leaves enough wiggle room for the audience to make up its own mind, a kind of nonfiction Rorschach test to help us illuminate how we really think about everything from housing costs to climate change.” – Alan Zilberman, Washington City Paper
“A vividly thrilling story about democracy.”- Kathy Ou, Hyperallergic