For more than 30 years the Educational Video Center has supported young media-makers to foster hope, create dialogue, and resist injustice. Ricky Nigaglioni was on the youth crew that produced a documentary about the struggle to resist gentrification in the Bronx and Brooklyn, As the Sun Comes Up the Bricks Fall Down (2010). Through the filmmaking process, EVC students discovered critical information about how long-time tenants can maintain their homes and protect their civil rights. As Ricky says, “That’s the power of documentaries like this…it’s gives people a chance to evaluate everything that’s happening. Then once people are aware, then they’re like ok I’m aware of it. What am I gonna do about it?”
After graduating from EVC, Ricky has gone on to write, perform, and teach songwriting and music production to elementary, middle, and high school students, and to young adults in detention centers. A Bronx-based MC and singer, Ricky has toured the U.S., South America, and Europe, and in 2015 released an album.
In 2016 EVC students returned to the topic of gentrification with a focus on Washington Heights. Their documentary, Stealing Home recently screened at the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem.
We are proud to celebrate our graduates from the past three decades whose documentaries have challenged us to think critically about pressing social issues in our lives. And we’re proud that they’ve gone on to make a difference in the world in countless ways—through the films they create, the communities they serve, and the students they teach and mentor.
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