The Clash: A Documentary about Public Space

The Clash: A Documentary about Public Space in New York Written and Directed by Benjamin H. Shepard. An independent film, the winner of multiple laurels and awards, seen in film festivals around the world. Notable awards: Activists Without Borders Film Festival, Honorable Mention, 2024, The IndieFEST Film Awards, Winner, 2024, Contemporary Issues / Awareness Raising, Liberation / Social Justice / Protest, Berlin Indie Film Festival, Selected, Berlin Lift off Festival, Selected, Paris International Short Festival, Semi Finalist, New York City Independent Film Festival, Selected, The New York City Harvest Festival, Selected, 2023. The Clash is a 59-minute educational film about contests over public space in New York City. Stories about fights for public space are everywhere here. We see them in the streets, between cars and drivers, gardens and developers, activists and police, parks and politicians, and on and on. Over a dozen years in the making, the Clash is a story about contests over green space, biking, occupying, sustaining, and Black Lives in public space, linking these contests in distinct and compelling ways. The film is written and directed by Benjamin Heim Shepard. Made with City Tech graduate Leslye O, Peter Shapiro is the executive producer, segment producer, and videographer; Barbara Ross is a videographer. The film serves as a tool for public education around green space and civil culture, community organizing, and discussions about democracy and inclusion. Both a New York and a global story, this film is ideal for classes on urban displacement, environmentalism, social problems, social movements, sustainability, community organizing, and community practice. As an educational tool, the film helps students consider the relation of self with others, with the city, and with human behavior in the social environment. It concerns the mental health benefits of access to green space and public space, as well as questions about civil engagement, public assembly, and public space. It involves intersections and entanglements between struggles, ways to look at individual lives in relation to green space, transportation, social movements, sustainability, and race. Origins The Clash is a visual summary of decades of public space activism, as well as four of my books and articles (Shepard and Smithsimon, 2011, Shepard, 2011, Shepard, 2011, Shepard, 2024) concerning social movements, fights for green space and sustainability. An overview, the film highlights core themes of these works, including questions about green space and public space. Sources and Literature Review Shepard, Benjamin. 2024. “East River Park, Resiliency Politics and the War on the Trees.” Low. S. Ed. Beach Politics: Ethnographies of Exclusion, Environmental and Cultural Vulnerability and Sociality of the Public Shoreline. New York University Press. Shepard, B and Smithsimon, G. 2011. The Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York Public Spaces. State University Press of New York. New York. Shepard, B. 2011. Play, Creativity and Social Movements: If I Can’t Dance Its Not My Revolution. Routledge, New York. Shepard, B. 2021. Sustainable Urbanism: Cast Studies in Dialectical Activism. Roman and Littlefield: New York Extra Credits Music: Epidemic Sound Stock: Videoblocks Contact: [email protected]