A careful camera observes a community performing the routine of their everyday lives, on the streets and inside the shops of Los Sures, New York. This routine environment is the stage for Rosemary’s 16th birthday, an unrepeatable event of a girl in transition. This short observational film intersects common rituals with a once-in-a-lifetime event, reflecting the passage of time in a tight-knit Dominican community. Through extreme close-ups, the camera plays the role of a sort of macro observer from the inside looking in, and sometimes looking out of, a densely layered and populated area where a community calls home.
Director's Statement
The first time I walked on a crowded block of Havemeyer Street, time seemed to slow down.
People were chatting in front of hair salons, bodegas and the many shops on this block. Families were gathered on stoops, kids were playing ball, circles of youngsters were smoking, laughing and hanging by parked cars that blasted music. Men were playing dominoes as older men were taking their time to buy one dollar piraguas as they exchanged stories with the street vendor. There even was a preacher with his music band — he would alternate preaching with singing. There was intense, specific activity.
Everything seemed to have its own color, style and identity.
‘Rosemary’s Street’, focuses on one personal story enclosed in a single event that happens on this street.”
— CONSTANZA MIRRÉ