Please join BVFCC & NHDocs: New Haven Documentary Festival for the First Friday Documentaries monthly series on Friday, June 2nd at 7 pm. We’ll be showing 2 docs: FIGHTING A SLUMLORD and I WANT TO BUY A HOUSE followed by a discussion with the filmmakers moderated by Babz Rawls Ivy, MPA, CSD, Editor-in-chief, The Inner-City News & Liaison, Corporate Affairs, Penfield Communications, Inc. Host/Co-Producer of LoveBabz LoveTALK on 103.5 WNHH-LP FM. Tickets are $10 at the door and the Best Video Coffee Bar will be open for beer, wine and cafe drinks.

FIGHTING A SLUMLORD For years, low-income tenants in Hartford put up with persistent rodent problems, water leaks, mold, and even collapsed ceilings. Upon organizing into the No More Slumlords campaign, they discovered that what they thought were problems caused by a single landlord with bad intentions were actually the side effects of a lucrative business model through which wealthy landlords around the country exploit low-income renters—the vast majority of them Black and Brown—for profit. Facing a Slumlord traces the years-long fight by these tenant-activists to not only hold the slumlord who had exploited them accountable, but also to change the systems at the municipal, state, and federal level that had allowed for such exploitation. That fight started in the city of Hartford but reaches all the way up to the federal government, touching even the Donald Trump presidency.

Dylan Landry is a New York City-based filmmaker and social impact communications professional. He grew up in rural Conway, Massachusetts, and attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he met and learned from the community organizers and activists behind the No More Slumlords campaign. After graduating from Trinity, he relocated to Boston, where he worked for a nonprofit focused on youth development, before moving to New York City to pursue social impact communications work. When he’s not making films, he enjoys film photography, biking, and chasing live music.

I Want to Buy a House This documentary tells the current state of housing market in Waterbury, Connecticut in partnership with Neighborhood Housing Services of Waterbury to discuss redlining, revitalization of neighborhoods, the current red-hot market, and a hope to increase homeownership rates in Waterbury specifically. NHSW works in the Crownbrook neighborhood of Waterbury, CT to revitalize the area and bring hope. Additionally, they have a community garden there where members can plant vegetables and fruit. The history of homeownership among minorities in the United States of America has been a rough one and has had its ups and downs but overall, NHSW is working to increase the numbers of homeowners among black and brown people, as well as all people of the city of Waterbury.

Mya Saree’ Gray was born on July 21, 1998 to a Ollie Gray III and Cynthia Gray, in Waterbury, Connecticut. As a musician, filmmaker, photographer, and artist, she uses these talents and gifts to tell her own story as well as the stories of those making a positive change in this world. She is a mother of two amazing sons, Ozzie and Camden. She recently graduated from Central Connecticut State University with a BA in Digital Filmmaking and minor in Anthropology, the likes of which have stirred within her a passion for documentary filmmaking.