At last year's SXSW, Marcy Garriott won the audience award for her documentary, Inside the Circle, the film's world premiere (which was appropriate, since it's a Texas story).
This week, the film will be having its New York City debut at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center as part of the Dance on Camera Festival. There are screenings of Garriott's film this Sunday, the 6th and another one on Friday the 11th, both at 3:30 p.m., with filmmaker and subjects--B-Boys Omar Davila, Josh "Milky" Ayers and Romeo Navarro--in attendance. You can purchase tickets here.
A subject near and dear to my heart, the film celebrates the grassroots hip hop movement, told through the story of best friends Davila and Ayers and their various life challenges and triumphs in rural Texas. The two become rivals when they join competing dance crews and while Omar rises to international fame, Josh has constant run-ins with the law. Navarro, a street dancer, throws the highly-competitive events where these young men show their stuff and do battle on the dance floor. 
Born in the Bronx and Harlem in the 70s, hip hop for authentic B-Boys and Girls still represents the movement's core values and ideals--acceptance, hope and creative expression. Michael Sragow of the Baltimore Sun says that the film is "an absorbing documentary about two Texas B-Boys that not only features the most sizzling breakdancing to be seen on the big screen, but also does the only lucid job I've yet encountered of explaining the aesthetic of this street art without diluting its power." The film is being released on DVD this summer, but New Yorkers should go see it at the Linc, 'cause they can. Here's the youtube link to see the trailer.
Inside the Circle is Garriott's second feature doc. Her first film, Split Decision, the story of deported boxer, Jesus Chavez, was broadcast on PBS in 2002 and 2006 and is now distributed by First Run Icarus Films.
Check back here on SIM soon for my interview with Garriott.
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