Fire Through Dry Grass, a documentary about race, poverty, disability, and the power of art, will be screened online on Tuesday, October 15 at 5 p.m.
The viewing will be followed by an interactive discussion with Reality Poets Andres “Jay” Molina and Vincent Pierce, who appear in the film.
The event is free and will be broadcast on Zoom. To register, visit www.msmc.edu/CADPfilm
The screening is being presented through a joint initiative by Mount Saint Mary College’s Center on Aging and Dis-Ability Policy, Independent Living, Inc., and Saint George’s Episcopal Church in Newburgh.
Fire Through Dry Grass uncovers in real-time the devastation experienced by residents of a New York City nursing home during the coronavirus pandemic. Co-directors Alexis Neophytides and Andres “Jay” Molina take viewers inside Coler on Roosevelt Island, where Jay lives with his fellow Reality Poets, a group mostly made up of gun violence survivors.
Wearing snapback caps and Air Jordans, Jay and the other Reality Poets don’t look like typical nursing home residents. They used to travel around the city sharing their art. Using GoPros clamped to their wheelchairs, they documented their harrowing experiences during the pandemic’s lockdown.
The Reality Poets’ rhymes flow throughout the film, underscoring their feelings that their home is now as dangerous as the streets they once ran. Fire Through Dry Grass shows these disabled Black and brown artists refusing to be abused, confined, erased.
Social Science professors Lawrence Force and Jeffrey Kahana are co-directors of Mount Saint Mary College’s Center on Aging and DIS-Ability Policy (CADP). Established in 2006, CADP promotes an interdisciplinary perspective dedicated to excellence in research and scholarship in the fields of gerontology and disability studies. Force has worked in the field of aging and disabilities for more than three decades as an administrator, clinician, and educator. Kahana, in addition to his work at the Mount, is a prolific author on subjects ranging from academics to social issues in the United States.