Katja Esson
Katja Esson, Ann Bennett, Corinna Sager
vimeo.com/369437756?share=copy
RAZING LIBERTY SQUARE is a character-driven verité documentary that weaves personal stories in and out of the larger social justice narrative of Climate Gentrification. Foremost it is about a community fighting to save itself from being erased in a rapidly changing Miami.
Our film is set in the oldest segregated public housing project in the South: Liberty Square, at the heart of Miami’s Liberty City. Underserved for decades and suffering from chronic disinvestment, Liberty City has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation. But as rising seas threaten Miami’s luxurious beachfront, wealthy property owners are pushing inland to higher ground. Liberty City, which sits on a ridge, is now real estate gold.
Our story begins in 2017, when the first homes of Liberty Square are being razed to the ground and replaced by a new mixed-income development. Initially, there was a lot of hope in the community that this development would be different from past urban renewal projects, but residents cannot forget Miami’s long history of broken promises. For the past 5 years, we have been filming with the people that are impacted by the developer’s bulldozers.
Sam Kenley is a single mother of seven who has lived in public housing all her life and now has to decide what is best for her family, to stay or to go. Samantha Quarterman is the founder and principal of Liberty Square’s alternative school and the developer promised to build her a brand-new school building. Local environmental activist Valencia Gunder sees educating her community about Climate Gentrification as a powerful weapon to achieve climate justice. Aaron McKinney is working as ‘community liaison’ for the developer. Aaron is convinced mixed-income housing is the solution to generational poverty, but he knows the ambiguity of his position: “My own family thinks I sold my soul to the devil.”
The stories of RAZING LIBERTY SQUARE originate at the intersection of race, climate, and socio-economic gentrification and interrogate assumptions of who matters—and who doesn’t—and about land and who controls it.
2023