The Forgotten City

On Saturday, I visited my hometown of Buffalo, NY, where I attended a screening of the documentary The Forgotten City during the first Buffalo Niagara Film Festival.

The Forgotten City was directed and photographed by Korey Green and Addison Henderson of Knuckle City Films. The film offers Green's and Henderson's insider perspective of the once booming city of Buffalo, NY, which beginning in the later half of the 20th Century, began to see a decline in population due to the loss of industry, racial discrimination, crime and drugs, especially in their East Side neighborhood, where much of the documentary unfolds, centering on the murder of their friend.

Green and Henderson interview a wide spectrum of people, both from their neighborhood, but also city politicians and police officials. They talk to a homeless man who is trying to find a place to stay for the night with his son. Women addicted to crack. People from a neighborhood ridden by a race war between local whites and blacks. They even go into a drug house where the drug dealers are showing off a sleeping prostitute.

But despite the crime, drugs, and injustices faced in these neighborhoods on a daily basis, we see community activists who are giving their all to make a difference in hopes that Buffalo will not be forgotten altogether and that one day will become the thriving city that it once was.