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Razing Liberty Square, a film by Academy® Award-nominated filmmaker Katja Esson (FERRY TALES, SKYDANCER, POETRY OF RESILIENCE, LATCHING ON), was nominated for a 2025 News & Documentary Emmy®!
As rising seas threaten Miami’s luxurious beachfront, wealthy property owners are pushing inland to higher ground. Residents of the historically Black neighborhood of Liberty Square—the first segregated public housing project in the South—are the new target of an upcoming “revitalization” project due to their location 12 feet above sea level. Razing Liberty Square is a character-driven verité documentary that weaves personal stories with the larger social justice narrative of climate gentrification. Foremost, it is about a community fighting to save itself from being erased in a rapidly changing Miami.
Razing Liberty Square, a good complement for COOKED by major-award winning filmmaker Judith Helfand, provides a looking glass for contemporary issues of wide-scale significance: the affordable housing crisis; the impact of systemic racism; and climate gentrification. While focused on Miami, which is experiencing sea level rise ahead of many other places, the story of Liberty Square is a prescient reminder of what is to come in communities across the US and world.
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