By Helen Quinn Pasin

Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Katja Esson is based in Miami. She is known for her character-driven documentaries tackling race, class, and gender. Her documentary short “Ferry Tales” garnered awards at international film festivals, was nominated for an Oscar and premiered on HBO in 2004. Other notable films include: “Hole in the Sky - The Scars of 9/11”; “Skydancer”; and “Poetry of Resilience”.

“Razing Liberty” is an award-winning documentary uncovering the untold stories of climate gentrification in Miami. Liberty City, Miami, was home to one of the oldest segregated public housing projects in the U.S. Now with rising sea levels, the neighborhood’s higher ground has become something else: real estate gold. Wealthy property owners push inland to higher ground, creating a speculators’ market in the historically Black neighborhood previously ignored by developers and policy-makers alike.

"When I was a child, my grandfather would always say, 'They're going to come take Liberty City because we don't flood.'" The film opens with a poignant statement from Liberty City Climate Organizer Valencia Gunder: "When they built Miami, they wanted it to be a beachfront paradise, but people of color were forced to be in the middle of the city. This was the place no one wanted to live, other than the people who were forced to be here. And now they want it."

Built in 1938, Liberty Square is one of the oldest public housing projects in the United States. In 2017, Miami’s government began the redevelopment of Liberty Square, home to nearly 700 families.

One Earth Film Festival conducted a Q&A with filmmaker Katja Esson about the production process of this powerful film.

Q: Why did you decide to tell this story?

A: Liberty Square is located only a few blocks from where I live. When I arrived in Miami in the late 1980s to study film, this exciting place blew my German mind. My first job in the film industry was as a production assistant on “2Live Crew” Hip Hop music videos, all filmed in Liberty City. Following my dream of making documentaries I moved to New York City—but Miami never left me.

When I moved back in 2016, Miami had exploded into a metropolis with a changed cityscape and thriving new neighborhoods. Only Liberty City seemed frozen in time, and then the bulldozers started rolling in.

During our five years of filming together, the protagonists’ growing trust and collaboration has been fiercely pushing me to make this film. As they share their stories, an intimate portrait of a community that is fighting for their neighborhood is emerging.

Miami is experiencing the effects of sea level rise before the rest of the country, with a 400% increase in annual flooding in the past 10 years according to a report by the University of Miami’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. By exploring how sea level rise affects the lives of residents of the oldest public housing project in the South, “Razing Liberty Square” will make “climate gentrification” an undeniable reality to audiences everywhere.

The film, focused on the microcosm of Liberty City, and Miami by extension, has international resonance. The question of where and how we live, who must stay or go and how climate change exacerbates the existing inequity in our nation’s cities, has never been more relevant.

Miami is ranked second (after New York City) in the US in income disparity. The city has the most dramatic housing crises in the country with the coastline relentlessly pushing inland. Our film brings into sharp focus how low-income communities of color are disproportionately affected by climate change because the need to move to higher ground has created a new manifestation of racial and economic injustice—climate gentrification.

Gentrification and the lack of affordable housing is universally felt in every city across the nation. The difference is, in Miami, for the first time, climate change becomes a driver in the process. Ironically, Miami's Black population, which was deliberately removed far from the precious coastline, is suddenly sitting on Miami's ‘real estate goldmine’. Filmed over five years, we have the unique opportunity to watch climate gentrification in real-time.

To understand how this film will speak to audiences in cities beyond Miami, we look to the reality on the ground and the horizon: coastal cities, like New Orleans and New York, are both set to suffer massive flooding in the next 20-50 years, losing whole parts of their cities underwater, and both face intense affordable housing crisis today, with extreme economic disparities and rapid gentrification. Los Angeles will not only lose land and beaches to sea level rise but also suffers from drought, fires, and intense heat. It has also been in a state of emergency for homelessness since 2015. Phoenix is not only the fastest growing city in the U.S. but is expected to imminently run out of drinking water, as a third of the year will have daily temperatures of over 100 degrees.

The stories of “Razing Liberty Square” originate at the intersection of race, climate, and gentrification. Our film interrogates assumptions of who matters—and who doesn’t—and about land and who controls it.

Q: What was your favorite part of production? Did you learn anything that surprised you?

A: I consider one of my biggest accomplishments to be earning and maintaining the trust of the people portrayed in my films. My mission is to cinematically explore the exciting, complicated, and at times messy American culture. Each time I make a film, I am aware of both my own immigrant status and my own white privilege, which is differently present in each project. As an outsider to American culture, who has lived in the US for more than 30 years, I am ‘in it’ but not ‘off it’ which gives me a unique perspective. I am immersing myself in the space, building relationships and creating an atmosphere in which my protagonists feel free to reveal their own stories. The intimacy of my working methods is a safe space for addressing larger issues such as violence, poverty, and racism, making them personal and resonant.

And from a craft or technical aspect, the aerial photography becomes another 'voice' within our film. From high views of the Florida coast to close tracking shots of the razing and building process all gives the viewer unique insights into our story.

“Our film interrogates assumptions of who matters—and who doesn’t—and about land and who controls it.”

— Katja Esson

Our cinematic widescreen language - often reserved for epic Westerns - portrays Liberty Square residents with a visceral connection to their physical surroundings. The widescreen also foregrounds ‘the land’ as a primary ‘character’ in the documentary. Land that was used as a tool of discrimination, land that is now disappearing because the sea is rising.

Q: What do you hope audiences take away from this film?

A: I want our film to move people to engage in conversations about how families are impacted by both the climate crisis and housing insecurity. My hope is that these dialogues will help to change past narratives and misconceptions about Liberty Square and other public housing communities.

From the start, the goal of the project has been to create a platform to share the voices of community members as authentic and unfiltered as possible. The people who we filmed with for over five years are their own 'experts' as they tell their own stories. With this approach, we hope that audiences will connect with and care about both the people and the place. By sharing the stories of individuals and families who are living on the frontlines of the climate crisis, I want audiences to understand that the dangers of Climate Gentrification will eventually impact all communities.

And I want audiences to look more critically at the current models of building mixed-income developments in low-income neighborhoods not just in Miami, but in cities all over the country, and feel the necessity of true community involvement from start to finish.

Within our film, the people of Liberty Square bear witness to their own experiences of how the climate crisis has affected their housing options. My hope is that the conversations and gatherings inspired by our documentary will help to build bridges between different communities and movements and foster sharing of information and resources that advance creative solutions.

“Razing Liberty Square” screens at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 20, at Bethel New Life, 1150 N. Lamon Ave, Chicago. Tickets are free, reserve now: https://www.oneearthfilmfest.org/alternate-films-az-2024/razing-liberty-square

Filmmaker Q&A with Katja Esson of 'Razing Liberty Square'

Helen Quinn-Pasin