Friday, October 5 – 7 PM

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 7 PM
TWO SQUARE MILES
Barbara Ettinger & Sven Huseby, 2006, 90 min.

A discussion with Barbara Ettinger, Sven Huseby, and Sam Pratt will follow the screening.

With its thriving main street, diverse population and healthy rate of revitalization, Hudson, New York could be seen as a model of small-town America. Hudson is dealing with the same issues that communities of all sizes face: ever-widening income gaps and the loss of a middle class; threats to health and environment by polluting corporations, gentrification and homogenization; and a compromised democratic process. Local business and small farms find it impossible to compete against national chains, while long-standing friction persists along racial and economic lines. Residents are divided in their support for a proposed 300-million-dollar cement plant owned by a Swiss multinational corporation. Without a doubt, the project will have substantial impacts on the community’s health, environment and economy. The fight against the plant is a vehicle through which different parts of the community come together, as politicians and executives try to divide the community for their own purposes. TWO SQUARE MILES takes a closer look at this small community in a state of flux, and is an extended observation of an American small town in transition, raising questions about Hudson’s future that are mirrored in changing communities across the nation.