A Brooklyn community fights rezoning and gentrification as developers reshape Sunset Park in this decade-long documentary of resistance.

Emergent City is a gripping, decade-in-the-making documentary that follows the high-stakes battle over Sunset Park, a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on Brooklyn's industrial waterfront. When a group of private developers acquires Industry City--a massive, aging complex of 16 industrial buildings--they propose a bold transformation into a gleaming 'innovation district.' What follows is a tense and deeply human clash between community residents fighting to preserve their homes, jobs, and identity, and powerful real estate interests promising economic growth.

Award winning filmmakers Kelly Anderson (Every Mother's Son) and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg (Brasslands) embed themselves in the fabric of the neighborhood, capturing intimate moments inside organizing meetings, city council offices, and public hearings. Through a patient, observational style, Emergent City brings viewers face-to-face with the slow grind of grassroots democracy as immigrant organizers, environmental justice advocates, and local leaders confront the machinery of urban redevelopment.

The film refuses easy answers, instead revealing the complex layers of negotiation, hope, resistance, and compromise that define New York City's contested land politics. Voices on all sides--developers, politicians, and activists--are given space, allowing the story to unfold with nuance and urgency.

As climate concerns, housing instability, and economic inequality intersect on the industrial waterfront, Emergent City becomes more than a local story--it's a portrait of 21st-century urban transformation and the people fighting to shape its future from the ground up. A vital chronicle of civic engagement, the film asks: Who gets to decide what a city becomes?

Media

 

Cast & Crew

Actors:

•       Andrew Kimball as Himself
•       Jim Somoza as Himself
•       Carlos Menchaca as Himself
•       Marcela Mitaynes
•       Elizabeth Yeampierre

Director: Kelly Anderson

Director: Jay Arthur Sterrenberg

Producer: Kelly Anderson

Producer: Brenda Avila

Additional Details

Label: MVD Visual

Genre: Documentary

Language: English

Run Time: 95 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 01/20/26

UPC: 760137194651