West Side Familia, a feature documentary about the Puerto Rican and Black families who helped shape the Upper West Side, is coming home for two screenings this month, each followed by a question-and-answer session with the film's cast and crew.

What the film is about

The film follows a Puerto Rican-led neighborhood crew and community care group that formed on the Upper West Side in the 1970s, and its members' work to hold on to their public traditions and cultural identity as the neighborhood around them changed. Through their life stories, it traces the cultural and political movements that the neighborhood's Black and Latino residents took part in, a part of the area's history that the filmmakers say is often left out of how the neighborhood is remembered.

It is also a personal story. Director Taylor Hosking is a third-generation Upper West Sider, and the film follows her own search for this history, which began after her late mother told her there was much more to learn about the blocks they both came from.

The production describes it as a PBS-backed feature, and it has already played the Bushwick Film Festival.

Screening one: Goddard Riverside, Nov. 14

The first neighborhood screening is on Saturday, Nov. 14, from 2:30 to 5 p.m. at Goddard Riverside's Bernie Wohl Center, 647 Columbus Avenue. Tickets are sold through Humanitix, with refunds available up to one day before the event. The organizers note that the auditorium is reached by eight steep steps with a railing, and that wheelchair users enter by an automatic chairlift, so anyone who needs an accommodation is asked to contact them in advance.

Screening two: Symphony Space, Nov. 21

The second is on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 5 p.m. in the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, presented by 93rd Street Media. Tickets are $20. The Symphony Space box office is open Tuesday through Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m., and opens an hour before events.

How to go

Both venues are a short walk from the 96th Street station on the 1, 2 and 3 trains. Links to both ticket pages, along with ways to support the film's distribution, are on the film's official page.

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