following the success of critically acclaimed, award-winning, national PBS broadcast
REVOLUTION ’67 (2007) on riots/rebellions of the 1960s and THE RULE (2014) on urban school reform
RUST presents the history of Rust Belt poverty, detailing industrialization and deindustrialization, racism and mass incarceration,
using the city of Newark, NJ as a microcosm. It explores solutions to inner city poverty through the voices of scholars,
economists, physicians, activists, and the community.
Documentary Film with runtime of 86 minutes
FILMMAKERS’ STATEMENT
We’re trained biologists, so we know that when the oxygen in the air that we breathe in, combines with the iron in the hemoglobin of our red blood cells,
the iron turns red, giving the red color to our blood. The same process occurs when oxygen in the air comes in contact with exposed iron in structures; it turns red.
Except the iron flakes off and exposes another layer of iron. And little by little, an entire iron structure can disintegrate into red dust or rust.
This scientific explanation was actually the first scene in our documentary film titled RUST, before it was deleted in editing
to a feature-length for national and Canadian PBS broadcast.
As social justice filmmakers, the process of “rusting" is very much a metaphor of what we see in our Rust Belt cities like our home city of Newark, NJ.
Through loss of jobs and rampant racism, many of our former industrial cities are beset with deep poverty.
And just like rust begets more rust, poverty begets more poverty, which becomes intergenerational.
And as the cycle continues, a city and its people can disintegrate.
Is there a solution to iron rusting? Absolutely!
You can protect iron in two ways: you can manually coat it with paint, or you can chemically coat it with a layer of nonreactive atoms.
And the same applies to our cities. Can we reduce poverty? Absolutely!
We’ve already seen our country do this, for example, in the 1930s during the great depression with federal programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
We can protect our inner cities and significantly decrease the misery of poverty through measures like: education, counseling and, of course, jobs.
That’s what our RUST film is about.
Marylou & Jerome Bongiorno, filmmakers
“Your documentary exploring the history and future of Intergenerational poverty in Newark
will provide a unique perspective and window into an ongoing problem that plagues our community,
and I am very much looking forward to its completion.
Your receipt of this selective honor [NJCH Award] is testament to your exceptional
storytelling abilities and your investment in your community."
~ Congressman Albio Sires
