Film fest to remember lockdown

Queens orgs. to share compilation of Covid-19 stories

by Sophie Krichevsky Associate Editor

When New York City officially shut down on March 16, 2020, the Queens World Film Festival was forced to cancel its live programming, which had been set for March 19. Instead of canceling, organizers opted to launch the event into a digital space, becoming the first film festival in the world to do so.

Three years later, Queens World is back in person, and, to mark that anniversary, will kick off its five-borough world premiere tour of “Together, Not Alone,” a compilation of Queens Covid stories, on March 19 at The Local NY Hostel and Bar, located at 13-02 44 Ave. in Long Island City, starting at 3:30 p.m.

The tour is the product of a collaboration between Queens World, the ZIP Code Project, the Queens Memory Project, the Asian American Documentary Network, Union Docs, the Five Boro Story Project, Stoop Stories and the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College/CUNY.

When the state ordered all nonessential workers to stay home, Queens World and its partners found themselves wondering:

Are we essential?

“We answered by leaping into action with virtual programming, live broadcasts, digital diaries, international Zoom collaborations and performances that spanned the globe,” the group wrote in a press release. “We never stopped finding ways to keep us all connected.”

The 19-minute short film, which was directed and produced by Gabriella Canal and Judith Helfand, aims to capture that time on screen. But it also commemorates the time when the city began to emerge from isolation, focusing on a small group of creators.

“Through art making, memory exchanging, movement and play, they move, map, remember and bear witness to each other’s struggles and imagine justice and repair,” the press release says.

The film grapples with the complicated emotions of that time.

“This is a cusp moment, when we are between remembering and wanting to forget, that we need to ask ourselves: What did we learn? What did we do well? What can we take with us and do better?” the press release continues. “Do we mourn or move on, go forward, or recommit ourselves to not forget, and to remember that the public health crisis is not over, it is still very much here, without the disaster declaration.”

Even the refreshments were chosen to help commemorate the moment — those will be served by The Queensboro, a Jackson Heights restaurant that mobilized to feed first responders at NYC Health + Hospitals/ Elmhurst, which was the epicenter of the pandemic at its peak.

In addition to “Together, Not Alone,” the event will screen a selection of other short films. All of them will be preserved by the Queens Memory Project, in hopes of sharing that time with future generations. Q