Trailer: Down Orchard Street Documentary

Award-winning lo-fi documentary filmmaker Courtney Fathom Sell gave Louis Ressy, an Orchard Street native, a video camera in which to document the real characters of Leather Shop owners and workers in the Lower East Side.

From the trailer description on Vimeo:

Down Orchard Street is a revealing, brutally honest, and at times hilarious self-portrait of many of the legendary Leather Shop owners and workers who reside on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side of New York City. The project, produced and edited by award-winning documentary filmmaker Courtney Fathom Sell (The Hole, My Dying Day) and Louis Ressy, begun when Sell gave Ressy, an Orchard Street native, a video camera in which to document the daily lives of his friends and co-workers. What unfolds, is a mosaic of New York City life, both told, as well as seen through the eyes of the ones who know it best in an unflinching, truthful, and in-your-face manner. Fighting, practical jokes, and personal stories of sexual antics are all apart of their daily lives and through the guerilla-style documentation; each subject opens up, exposing their true selves in the most honest and truthful way without any hesitation.

For years, Orchard Street has been known for its Leather apparel stores and the abrasive personalities who run and work at them. With gentrification slowly eating away at the true core of the Lower East Side, ‘Down Orchard Street’ is a unique look at one of the city’s’ most historic yet endangered locations. Utilizing the everyday issues in which the Subjects deal with, and the store workers as the main characters, ‘Down Orchard Street’ spans out almost as a sitcom, and is a revealing, occasionally heartbreaking glimpse into the true essence of the Lower East Side.

Posted by: sheacote