“... love revolution that is the squatter movement in New York. It’s a united movement, strong and confrontational, but one who wins. It’s loving, the love revolution also wins.”
Ricardo Leon Pena Villa
Loisaida Housing Resistance is a series of three short video portraits that reveal various faces of an underground community in New York City’s Lower East Side neighborhood. Each short focuses on a different person who lives as a squatter.
The squatter movement is a social group of people who intend to occupy empty, neglected property in order to improve their housing conditions, as well as blow life back into abandoned buildings and neglected neighborhoods.
With these documentaries I attempt to open a window to each of my subjects’ lives, but I also want to show how their lives go beyond them: My aim is for the audience to understand not only their personal motivations, dreams and nightmares, social needs and political statements, but also to unveil an alternative for housing in New York City.
Ricardo Leon Peña Villa, Mario Bustamante, Geanme Marin and her daughter Paula have battled for more than a decade in favor of legalization and regularization of the squatter community. They fight for recognition of their right for affordable housing and believe evictions and the overall government take on squatting are a violation of fundamental human rights.
