STRAIGHT OUTTA HUNTERS POINT - TRAILER

"Straight Outta Hunters Point", the award-winning Hip Hop documentary by Hunters Point filmmaker Kevin Epps is a stark cinematic portrait of a community struggling to stop the forces of gentrification -- denial of jobs, police brutality, environmental racism and more -- that have pushed 23 percent of San Francisco's Black population out of the City in the past decade. It has won the acclaim of critics and audiences at independent film festivals around the U.S., including Sundance and the Santa Fe Film Fest, where it was described as "a gritty, uncompromising film about the evolution and perseverance of a black culture in the shadow of poverty, race riots and gang-related rap wars."
Drive-bys, drug peddling and heavy dealing, hot rodding, gun toting, pimping, hustling and rapping - and young people can see very few paths out. "Once that culture is bred, it's prevalent," says Kevin Epps, who has called Hunters Point his home for 30 years.
Epps' film touches briefly on the period during World War II, when Hunters Point was the home of African American shipyard workers who migrated from the South with their families in search of better-paying jobs. After the war, when white men returned from the war front to take back their jobs, opportunities for blacks at the shipyard started to dwindle. The area soon became home to the city's poor, unemployed and unwanted.
The documentary leaves audiences with the taste of despair that churns in the bellies of most residents.
"We're numb to the situation because we've been there so long, even though you know it's not normal," Epps says. "I'm trying to communicate to people this is not normal and we can't accept it."
The result is a montage of voices: Mothers sob unable to reconcile their losses; friends and family celebrate another young life cut off too soon; evangelicals rush in to soothe and save souls. "Can I get with you in prayer," one missionary asks as the young man turns his back. Politicians declare at press conferences that the violence must stop. Police vow to stop it. All the while gangsters from both turfs explain themselves and the unapologetic ways of the streets.
"We have so many guns over here," Epps says. "AL47s. 223s.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• hunters
• point
• kevin
• epps
• mastamind
• hyphy
• violence
• crime
• sex

[repislam]

oh yeh, we is kinda dangerous, but we dont wanna be like that. Its better if its peace around da world, but we will fuk wit u if u fuk wit us....das the point. Anywayz, hope god gives ya guidance, peace my brother.

[CrowdPleeza]

Well parts of Kingston Jamaica are worse than U.S ghettoes as far as violence. They have political gangs shooting each other. Ever heard of the Shower Posse?

[19bayarea91]

this was a good ass movie that was real,no sugar coated fake shit,i wonder were evry1 in that video is at now an what they doin

[dex1lsp]

@forest1997 Trust me boy, it can get hella rough. I grew up there. You can't really understand until you've lived there, lost a lot of friends and family there, and nearly lost yourself there. I don't care what people who don't really know about it say about it; the fact is HP is no joke.

[forest1997]

Bayview Hunters point isnt thatt bad. just ple dont wanna go down there

[SCOBOY1]

bayviewhunters point from the top to the flats I LOVE MY HOOD...A LOTA GRIMEY SHIIT DEN HAPPEN BUT STILL LOVE IT THOE YAMSAYN..MUCH LOVE TO THE BAY..still stay n the point (3rd nd palou)

[cashmoney510]

WEST POINT ON MYNEZ

[EarlMcCrackin]

Bayview's the neighborhood side, houses and shit. Hunters Point overlooks the bay, mainly projects and toxic industry stuff the navy left behind...

[LiciaATL]

Is Bayview another neighborhood from Hunterspoint. Why do they call it Bayview/Hunterspoint. Somebody please break it down for me.

[heckadee]

Respect out to HP

Im from the MIssion, but anybody I ever talked to knows that HP rolls the hardest.

Keep it real down there but take it easy. The Bays gotta unite.