The LIFT experiment is closely linked to the award winning film director Ed Radtke’s ( THE DREAM CATCHER, BOTTOM LAND) new feature film project SUPERHEROES slated for production later on this year. This focuses on New York City’s video savvy youth and the role it plays in their lives. With project assistance by other known producers like Ira Deutschman (Emerging Pictures) and Greg O’Connor (Solaris) Radtke recruited with minimal corporate sponsorship 24 New York City teens from five local non profit organization, like DCTV, the DOOR and the Harlem Community Justice Center. These teens , mostly from an Afro-American and Laino backgrounds, were trained in basic film making, story telling, visual thinking, and post-production techniques, provided with user friendly equipment, and asked to develop, produce, and complete within a three weeks’ span short digital videos reflecting their urban life. Their work, from the first days of deciding on a topic to the last days of editing, was in turn recorded by documentary team for purposes of evaluation. After three weeks seven digital shorts premiered for an overflowing and enthusiastic audience at the Lincoln Center’s Walter Read theatre.

The results of these pressure cooked productions were startling. They were mostly well edited ( with Final Cut I, apparently the most popular software), mostly innovative, and even touching. My favorites three films covered estrangement and isolation (STRANGERS), the visual feast of Times Square (x 2 TIMES SQUARED), and the ‘flow of life’ in the elegiac / poetic contemplation COMO AGUA, on the flow of life. Compared to other productions assembled by professionals under equally severe time constraints for New York’s RIP project and VisionFest, ( reviewed by filmfestrival.com before) the quality of productions made by the LIFT novices was truly amazing.

For Radtke and his collaborators involvement of urban youth in the Superheroes project was prompted by the goal of providing through the LIFT project training the tools necessary for media making and literacy, thus possibly also ‘opening the door for self-empowerment’ and careers in the film industry. The motivation to develop a model for community based film making played also a role. In addition there was the pragmatic yet innovative idea of generating conceptual and visual material for the Superheroes from freshmen filmmakers representing the demos of very group of urban teenagers and adolescents Radtke centers his new film around. Since the production teams read the script for Superheroes before developing ideas for their own shorts they were sort of prepped, though not obliged, to generate suitable images and ideas for in the SUPERHEROE feature. Some of the youth will be able to able to work on that film and further hone their skills.

Radtke brings to the LIFT project his past experience with high school students, at risk youth, and adult prisoners, and feature films in which he deals with youth, delinquency, and ruptured homes. Further his upbringing in a small town in Ohio where he was the sole Japanese-American provided the rough sensitivity to work with minorities.

Claus Mueller; cmueller@hunter.cuny.edu