The Portland gentrification documentary project that began filming in March of 2015 now has a working title – Priced Out: 15 Years of Gentrification in North/Northeast Portland. Nearly 15 years have passed since the release of Northeast Passage: The Inner City and the American Dream, a documentary focused on gentrification and affordable housing in the then mostly black neighborhoods of Portland, Ore. Change has been stark.
WATCH: NorthEast Passage on Amazon Streaming
Cornelius Swart, an established reporter and Spencer Wolf are partnering once again on the production. The original film centers around Nikki Williams, a single black mother who welcomed gentrification at the time as a means to rid her street of flagrant crime. Now, most of the black and low-income community has been out-priced from Northeast Portland. Williams herself is leaving.
Priced Out will combine some of the original project’s 125 hours of footage with new material, retracing the journey of Williams and the neighborhood, creating a time lapse illustrating Northeast Portland’s rapid and extensive development. They intend to make the finished project free for distribution and released in fall of 2015. The filmmakers are launching a Kickstarter campaign for the film with a goal of $10,000. Early contributions are essential, the more people who contribute on Day One, even in very small amounts, the greater the publicity from Kickstarter.