Filmmaker Stefanie Joshua

“Bushwick Homecomings,” Stefanie Joshua’s film about life in the post-fire, drug-infested Bushwick of the ’80s and ’90s, is screening on November 9, at the African American Women in Cinema Film Festival in Manhattan.

I spoke with Stefanie about her film, which tells the story of Bushwick through five men she knew while growing up. Cinematically, the documentary is very simple – Stefanie had no formal film training when she decided to create it. But both the subjects and subject matter of the film are highly compelling, to say the least.

Triggered by the senseless murder of a childhood friend, Stefanie was driven to explore why, exactly, the men she grew up with and around so readily welcomed a life of drugs, guns and crime. She wrote a thesis on the topic, then decided to use the footage from her research for a documentary. The candid nature of the film’s interviewees exposes a part of Bushwick’s past that is often hidden from the public, the consequences of which still resonate today.

“Bushwick Homecomings” has been selected by ten festivals across the country to date, and won “Best Indie Documentary” at the Motor City International Film Festival in Detroit this year.

Read the full version of this article at The Brooklyn Ink.