Highway Nowhere
Film Screening & Ticket Information
When & Where to See this Film!
QUEENS CORNER: 6 films as diverse as our Borough.
April 28, 2024 @ 4:30PM • MoMI Redstone
Film Bloc Line Up:
Synopsis
Death of the American Dream?
Credits
Charles A. Jimenez, Director
Director Statement
After losing my job in the travel industry, I started taking long morning walks through old LIC. These walks brought me to the neighborhood of Blissville. Located between the LIE, Old Calvary Cemetery and Newtown Creek. I instantly became fascinated with the area. It looked like local factory workers once lived there when LIC was a thriving industrial city. Now it resembled a place that was in limbo and somewhat abandoned. I did some research and found that residents from the neighboring town, Laurel Hill, had been forced out in 1966. The city demolished their homes to connect the LIE and BQE. This made me think of the ongoing displacement of people, and the pursuit of the American Dream. An ideology that was heavily sold during the Industrial Revolution. Is it still alive today, did it crash and burn? Or maybe George Carlin was right, “It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Director Biography
Charles A. Jimenez is a filmmaker and photographer from Queens, NY. Ever since he was a kid he’s been engaged in the arts. It started with drawing and painting. Later, as a teenager he was a graffiti writer. It wasn’t until dropping out of high school that he found his love for cinema. Without the means to attend film school, he worked in video stores, spending his free time studying film and making shorts. Along the way he picked up a still camera and started shooting street photography.
