Why I Ride: From Low to Show - a youth produced film about car culture now and then April 19, 2007

Conscious Youth Media Crew
In Association with Mission Archives
And Burning Wagon Productions
With ColoredInk’s 2 Generation, 1 Heartbeat Project
presents:

A Brava Theater Film Premiere
Why I Ride: From Low to Show
April 19, 2007

Brava Theater
2781 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Parking at 23rd and San Bruno (SF General Hospital)
Tickets/Reservations: 415.641.7657
$5-15 sliding scale
For more Information call 415-621.5353
www.cymc415.com


San Francisco, CA –On April 19, 2007, The Brava Theater will premiere an entirely youth-produced documentary, “Why I Ride: from Low to Show” comparing the history, activism and policing of lowriding in the Mission District with the emerging scraper car culture in East Oakland. The community will come together with an artist’s exhibit, performances by Colored Ink, a panel discussion featuring local Chicano activists and youth scrapers and a very special DJ set by Sandy Cuadra of Frisco’s Finest.

From lowriders to scrapers, Northern California's car culture embodies independent artistic expression and grassroots community empowerment. “Why I Ride: From Low to Show” is a youth-driven documentary that juxtaposes the history of the Chicano lowrider movement in San Francisco’s Mission District with the emerging 'side show' scraper culture of black youth in Oakland. This fascinating film explores how heavily policed subcultures can be starting points for community activism and challenges present day subcultures to find ways to emerge as organizers.

In the summer of 2006, young producers from Conscious Youth Media Crew went into the neighborhood to speak with some of the folks from the lowrider scene in the early eighties.  Their interviews soon revealed the similarities between lowriders and today’s youngsters partaking in Bay Area sideshows.  In the days of “low and slow,” the youth got together to dance to oldies and cruise down Mission street. After anti-lowrider traffic laws, police aggression, and stereotypes changed the dynamics of the community, lawsuits were filed and the lowrider hangout spot known as “the lot” was turned into Raza Park, more bureaucratically known as “Potrero Del Sol.” Though local government saw it as a fair replacement for freedom in the streets, it was a more concentrated end to public cruising in the mission.

Oakland’s scrapers come together in a Sideshow, where young people enjoy their community through cars, music, dance and organizing. These events have heavily influenced youth culture in the Bay Area, though they face the same kind of attacks on their street culture as the lowriders. The resulting film “Why I Ride: from Low to Show” compares the struggle of young people of color to claim public space as their own, while promoting cultural pride and tradition.

With CYMC, Raymond Balberan, a long-time community media activist, established the Mission Archives to revive old film reels he shot with Mission MediArts back in the seventies and eighties. Mission archivists and local filmmakers, Veronica Majano  and Ginger Godines miraculously came upon a collection of reels featuring the streets and people of the lowrider era whose very lives the youth were documenting. This original 16mm footage gave a valuable community perspective of the essence of the time period, the energy of the youth and families that cruised the Mission and their community struggle against racism to save their culture from being shut down by the police.

The screening will open with an exhibit featuring the local artists involved with the project and include performances by Colored Ink’s CI’s 2 Generation 1 Heartbeat Project and will be followed by a Panel Discussion, Why I Ride: From Lowriders to Scrapers, including speakers Ray Balberan, Valerie Tulier, Robert Hernandez, Elliott McGregor, moderated by Debra Koffler.

Official Website: http://www.cymc415.org