- The Southeast side is an overlooked, negatively stigmatized neighborhood of Chicago. This is a documentary about the aftermath of a place long abandoned, pushed to the side after it was no longer of use, and a story of heroes who lost sight of what they were fighting for. We will explore the anthropology of the area, learning how the various cultures and ethnicities bonded, clashed, and assimilated throughout time...and how this history played an effect on the relationships of those peoples moving forward. We will dive into the Vietnam War and government politics. We'll learn about street gang evolution and, of course, we will uncover the story of the steel mills. How did deindustrialization and disinvestment affect the community afterward? "SOUTHEAST: a city within a city" is a documentary that unfolds this story, showcasing the rise and demise of this empire of a place.—Walsh, Steven J.
- This is a documentary about the Southeast Side of Chicago-an overlooked, negatively stigmatized neighborhood of the city. It's a story about how beautiful and flourishing the community once was...and how that beauty was taken away, due to deindustrialization and an overall disinvestment in the area.
The narrator of the story is my grandfather Roger "Coco" Gomez, whose family moved to South Chicago from Texas in the 1950's. He-like everyone else in the area-worked at the steel mills before they shut down, before the Southeast side of Chicago was completely depleted of resources and jobs. Coco leads the discussion on what he and the rest of the neighborhood did to survive after the mills closed.
How does a community that once competed with downtown Chicago in stature and presence become so damaged, and what happened to the people in it afterward?
SOUTHEAST: a city within a city unfolds this story, showcasing the rise and demise of this empire of a place.
We explore the anthropology of the area, learning how the various cultures and ethnicities bonded, clashed, and assimilated throughout time...and how this history played an effect on the relationships of those peoples moving forward. We dive into the Vietnam War and government politics. We learn about street gang evolution and, of course, we uncover the story of the steel mills.
Our aim for this documentary is to address the negative and misguided interpretation of the Southeast side of Chicago. This community was -and is- a place filled with beauty, diversity and culture. Once attributed as the #1 steel producing neighborhood in the country, the Southeast side has suffered blow after blow following the closing of the mills: from an increase in crime, to white flight, to a higher cancer rate than most zip codes of the city combined.
What we currently see in news, museums and film about the neighborhood is either completely negative or told primarily from one perspective. So our aim is to bring in the many cultures that make the Southeast side so beautiful and colorful - a true melting pot of Native, Latinx, Black, and European descent, and to tell a story that is full and inclusive.
And rather than focusing on the effects of a high crime and violence rate in the area, we want to uncover what the causes were-what led the people of the neighborhood to do the things that they do-by discovering how the neighborhood's past affects its present.
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Top Gap
By what name was Southeast: A City Within a City officially released in Canada in English?
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