(Stream will go live at 7:30 – 12/12)

We’re delighted to present an extra special screening of the acclaimed documentary Takeover that tells the story of the Young Lords direct action and battle for their lives, their community and healthcare for all.  We’ll open the night with a reading from poet / community organizer Lemon Andersen preceding the feature.

The Young Lords was originally a street gang in Chicago that became politicized in 1968 citing inspiration from the Black Panthers and the student movement in Puerto Rico. In 1969 the organization expanded to the east coast, establishing a chapter in New York City on July 26, 1969. The Young Lords stood for self-determination for Puerto Rico and all Latinos, community control of institutions and land, equality for women, an end to racism, and ultimately a socialist society. They focused on education and organizing their community. They used the tactics of direct action, primarily occupations, to provide solutions to the problems their communities were facing.

Takeover explores the twelve historic hours on July 14, 1970, in which fifty members of the Young Lords Party stormed the dilapidated Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, drove out their administrative staff, barricaded entrances and windows, and made their cries for decent healthcare known to the world. They raised the Puerto Rican flag atop the building, as well as a banner reading “The People’s Hospital” – a nom de guerre still used today. Through archival footage, seamless reenactments, and modern-day interviews, we follow the Young Lords’ resistance against institutions curated by wealth and white supremacy, and their fight for the most basic of human rights: the right to accessible,  quality healthcare.

A homecoming of sorts, this film was developed at early stages of production in the UNDO Summer Lab with Director Emma Francis-Snyder.  Former UNDO Collaborative Studio artist and current UNDO Board Member Sebastian Diaz is the film’s editor, and Board Member Tony Gerber is a producer along with Executive Producers Lynn Nottage and Luis Miranda Jr.

Francis-Snyder will be joined by Young Lords, Denise Oliver-Velez and Hiram Maristany, and poet Lemon Anderson in a conversation following the program. We’re especially excited to have award-winning filmmaker Yoruba Richen present to guide the dialogue with whom Francis-Snyder has collaborated with in the past.

Proof of vaccination is required for entry and masks are to be worn for the duration of the program while indoors.

1970. A group of activists, the Young Lords, take over a decrepit hospital in the South Bronx launching a battle for their lives, their community, and healthcare for all.

Emma Francis-Snyder is a New York based activist and documentary filmmaker. With Takeover she is a 2020 Ford Foundation: Just Films and Open Society Foundation grantee. She attended the 2019 Reykjavik International Film Festival Talent Lab. She is a 2017 UnionDocs Summer Fellow and the winner of the 2017 Brooklyn Film Festival Exchange pitch. In 2012 Emma, and co-director, Sara Beth Curtis, received the Rosen Fellowship and traveled to Santiago, Chile and Montreal, Quebec to film the simultaneous student movements. She is the co-producer of the film, Straight/Curve, and the associate producer of Yoruba Richen’s award-winning I Rise series.

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the founding director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Her work has been featured on PBS, MSNBC, FX, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline, The Atlantic, and Field of Vision. Her latest film, How it Feels To Be Free, executive produced by Alicia Keys, premiered on PBS’s American Masters in January of 2021.

Her other recent films include, The New York Times Presents: The Killing of Breonna Taylor, which won an NAACP Image Award and is currently streaming on Hulu, and The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show which is streaming on Peacock.

Her previous film, The Green Book: Guide to Freedom was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her films, The New Black and Promised Land, won multiple festival awards before airing on PBS’s Independent Lens and P.O.V.

Yoruba won the Creative Promise Award at Tribeca All Access and is a Sundance Producers Fellow. She is a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker Award and a Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow.