17th Annual Architecture + the City Festival Presents, Film/Discussion: "5 Blocks"

Join the American Institute of Architects/San Francisco (AIASF) and the Center for Architecture + Design for this documentary film screening and discussion of "5 Blocks" produced and directed by Dan Goldes + Robert Cortlandt.

San Francisco's Market Street was once the grandest boulevard in America, but decades of neglect have ground this once vital neighborhood to the nub. When the late Mayor Edwin Lee enacts legislation exempting businesses in the Central Market Street neighborhood from payroll tax in 2011 and dangles it in front of major tech companies to keep them from leaving town, the so-called Twitter tax break triggers an avalanche of changes. "5 Blocks" explores the complex questions of income disparity, changing demographics, and the very nature of place.

Interweaving cinema vérité scenes, interviews with 16 individuals, and archival film and photos, "5 Blocks" reveals the challenges of attracting new, wealthy residents and workers to an area with a 50-year history of housing and serving a very poor population. Everyone involved wants to see less crime, cleaner streets, and an end to open drug use. But the needs of the existing population – inexpensive stores and restaurants that serve as gathering places for those who live in tiny subsidized hotel rooms and consider the street an extension of their living space – are often in conflict with the trendy, high-end places favored by the young tech workers.

Dan Goldes – Producer/Director

Dan Goldes is a graduate of the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking and his first film, ub2, a short documentary about language relating to HIV, has screened at 40 U.S. and international film festivals. His 2015 short documentary, Equal Justice Under Law, premiered in San Francisco before playing at 20 other U.S. and international festivals. Arrested (Again) premiered at the San Francisco Green Film Festival in April 2017 and has played at 55 festivals around the world to date. His most recent short film, Keeper of the Creek, was released in 2018 and has played at festivals in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. Dan was assistant editor on Out on the Dance Floor, an Official Selection of Frameline32, the San Francisco International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and he produced numerous corporate videos while at the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau. He has served on the screening committees for the San Francisco Green Film Festival and the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. Dan and 5 Blocks are in the incubator residency program at the San Francisco Ninth Street Independent Film Center.

Robert Cortlandt – Producer/Director (1959 – 2016)

Robert Cortlandt was an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and media artist whose work has been displayed in the U.S and internationally. He was the recipient of a Prentice and Paul Sack Award for Outstanding Photography and his work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SOMArts, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Still Lights Gallery, and 22 Gallery. His photographs are held in private collections in the United States, Guatemala, and Colombia. He applied his visual skills and knowledge to documentaries focused on education, social change, and marginalized communities. His work includes an assistant director role on the ITVS-funded documentary Follow My Lead, chronicling the same-sex partner dance community, and director and editor on films focused on teen suicide prevention at the It Gets Better Project. He was a former human resources executive with Apple and Gap Inc. and received his BFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute.