Located in the heart of Boston, Roxbury is a diverse and vibrant community whose longtime residents have struggled to rise above decades of discriminatory housing policies. The new documentary, Roxbury, is an intimate exploration of these struggles and residents’ efforts to claim agency in a shared vision of a better future that reflects a larger struggle facing communities across the country.
The film is the result of an education and outreach grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development designed to deliver fair housing information to the general public, renters and real estate professionals.
With the grant, Suffolk University Law School’s Housing Discrimination Testing Program (HDTP) partnered with Suffolk University’s College of Arts & Sciences Media Studies Department to develop a living media project that would focus on fair housing history and its impact on housing today.
A cross-collaborative effort, the film is a result of HDTP’s extensive fair housing knowledge and the media studies department’s filmmaking expertise. Suffolk students and alumni also contributed to the film through on-camera interviews, working behind the camera and in the editing process, providing an experiential learning opportunity with a social justice focus.
Directed by filmmaker Dan Weidknecht, Roxbury will be used as part of HDTP’s fair housing education and outreach activities and media studies professors will have an opportunity to use the film in their classes as a teaching tool.
List of discussion questions about the film [PDF].
The film premiered at the Roxbury International Film Festival during the Celebrating Community shorts event on Saturday, June 24, 2023 at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury.
