mono Posted May 29, 2023 Report Share Posted May 29, 2023 Text by Eric Nelson May 24, 2023 https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/keys-to-the-city Quote: Anyone who has locked them-self out of a car or building knows the panicky feeling of vulnerability that sets in when the door you took for granted will no longer open. The director and cinematographer Ian Moubayed found himself in that exact situation several years ago, when he got locked out of his New York City apartment in the middle of the night. He found a locksmith to help him get back in, and he realized that locksmiths have a unique window on the lives of New Yorkers—they are summoned in moments of great stress, by customers from all backgrounds and with all kinds of stories. That interaction was the catalyst for Moubayed’s short documentary “Keys to the City.” All Brooklyn Locksmith is nestled next to a corner grocer on Flatbush Avenue, where the business has operated since 1969. It’s open for emergency service twenty-four hours a day. When he’s at the office, the owner, Tony Volpe, takes calls from customers, issuing wisecracks and dismissing requests for discounts. When Moubayed met Volpe and his head locksmith, Matthew Ballard, who had been in the business for forty-seven years, Ballard was due to retire in a little more than a month. When Moubayed asked Ballard about being filmed for a documentary, the locksmith told him, “You should really talk to George. That’s the guy I have to train before I retire.” “Keys to the City” follows the two of them as Ballard prepares his younger colleague to take over, imparting lessons of the trade and how to maintain a long-term career. George Goga, originally from the country of Georgia, moved to the United States at the age of fourteen, and grew up in the neighborhood of Brighton Beach. He talks with Ballard about how he views the job: as a means to keep himself out of the kind of trouble he got into in his youth, and as an opportunity to learn how to run a small business so that he can one day get his own and support a family. As the days until Ballard’s retirement dwindle, the prudent and wary expert shows the ardent protégé the ropes, handling customers and fixing doors and locks, working in the homes and hallways of a variety of New Yorkers. “The film just scratches the surface of what they see,” Moubayed told me, of Goga and Ballard. “They do evictions, they go to houses where dead bodies are just laying . . . [they deal with] marital disputes.” Ballard passed away last year, days after the film premièred. Moubayed mostly shot the documentary before the covid-19 pandemic hit. He has come to see the story, of one trade-smith handing off knowledge to the next, as a metaphor for the way that the city, and the people in it, evolve with time. “At the heart of it, it’s really about coming to peace with change in different shades,” he said. Close Quote Backstory… Telephone - audio only - interview with filmmaker by Society of Professional Locksmiths (11 minutes) https://www.sopl.us/blog/keys-to-the-city-a-documentary-of-a-retiring-new-york-city-locksmith - - - https://www.brooklynfilmfestival.org/film-detail?fid=2513 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted May 29, 2023 Report Share Posted May 29, 2023 That is a crackerjack little doc--really well done. Good on these folks--they did the old-time hang-with-the-subjects verite thing and got a great story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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