One week only!

Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse communities in the world. There are immigrants from Mexico, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, China; every country in South America. Some are citizens, some have green cards, some are without documents. The people who live in Jackson Heights, in their cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity, are representative of the new wave of immigrants to America. 167 languages are spoken in Jackson Heights.

Some of the issues the film raises – assimilation, integration, immigration, and cultural and religious differences – are common to all the major cities of the Western world.

The subject of the film is the daily life of the people in this community – their businesses, the community centers, religions, and political, cultural, and social lives – and the conflict between maintaining ties to traditions of the countries of origin and the need to learn and adapt to American ways and values.

This is Frederick Wiseman’s third film about communities, the others being ASPEN and BELFAST, MAINE. In these films, as in all his films, he is trying to present a broad and complex portrait of contemporary life. Since 1967, Frederick Wiseman has directed 40 documentaries – dramatic, narrative films that seek to portray ordinary human experience in a wide variety of contemporary social institutions.