Screening: Chop Shop

Event published by Miniciné At Armley Mills

Event date: June 16, 2011 19:00

Tagged as: arthouse cinema culture drama economic_crisis film immigration independent latino migration new_york orphan queens repression social_struggles

Places: armley canal_road leeds ls12 west_leeds

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Widely praised at the Cannes, Berlin and Toronto Film Festivals, CHOP SHOP is the second remarkable feature from the internationally acclaimed young director Ramin Bahrani, who was recently hailed 'the new great American film director' by eminent critic Roger Ebert.

On the outskirts of Queens, and just steps from some of New York's most iconic landmarks, Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in a ‘Chop Shop' - an illegal workshop breaking stolen cars for the purpose of selling them as parts. In this ramshackle world of mud, rust, graffiti, and twisted scrap metal populated by illegal immigrants and low-level adult criminals, young Alejandro struggles to pursue his goal of making a better life for himself and his spirited 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

Intimate, heartbreaking and yet ultimately uplifting, CHOP SHOP is a masterwork of low-budget precision and improvisation in portraying a child navigating his way through a chaotic adult world in search of his own slice of the American dream.

Dir Ramin Bahrini / 86 mins / 2007 / Cert 15

 

 

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