“Nobody wants to live outside”
= play trailer =
"We are totally transfixed by Pier Kids: The Life."
— QUEERTY
"Pier Kids is already proving to be as raw as an open wound, a film that is at once provocative as it is necessary."
— GAYLETTER
"Here are the descendants of the people in Paris is Burning, depicted by someone who's lived the madness and can relate, first-hand, why this is an important New York story and an important American story."
— Jennie Livingston, director of PARIS IS BURNING
"Pier Kids is an important documentary that tells the stories of the people who are often voiceless."
— GLAAD
PIER KIDS: THE LIFE follows the director over the course of three years as he films three gay and transgender youth of color who have become, like the director once was, homeless on the same street the Gay Rights Movement began so long ago.
The film has been featured in The Fader, VICE, ABC News, The Huffington Post (two and three times), Buzzfeed, OUT Magazine, Queerty, Slate and on GLAAD’s website.
The struggle is real, and while the struggle students have in college is nothing compared to the struggle depicted in Pier Kids: The Life, it still counts. If you are going crazy with a paper, you need to address a reliable service with a “write my essay” request and pay someone professional to get your film review or any other paper written. You hire the help the same as you delegate all other tasks — from ordering pizza to haircuts. If you cannot do it on your own right now, address someone who can. It is a gig economy that creates a healthier, more connected, and tolerant society — the one Pier Kids characters could certainly benefit from.
Born a ward of the state and placed into the foster-care system when he was fifteen months old, DESEAN didn’t meet his birth mother until shortly before he turned eighteen. But the joyful reunion only lasted a few days. DeSean’s biological mother quickly pushed him out of her home for his sexual orientation. That is when DeSean came to Christopher Street, where he has been for the past five years. A natural born leader, DeSean breaks all the stereotypes of a young homeless black male and instead speaks with an intelligence and eloquence rarely found at any level of society. At the same time, however, he spends much of the film in jail.
At the age of sixteen, KRYSTAL was pushed out of her home by a family who rejected her sexual orientation. Krystal moved around a lot after that. First it was Kansas City, then Los Angeles, then Phoenix, then Las Vegas, then back to Kansas City, and then finally New York City. It was there, on Christopher Street, that Krystal finally found the kind of family that would support her for who she was and not who people hoped her to be.
CASPER was born a ward of the state and lived in the foster care system until his mother regained custody of him at the age of fourteen. Casper soon began going to Christopher Street where he explored his bi-sexuality. He quickly became a familiar and comforting face on the piers but was unfortunately and quite mysteriously run down by a car and killed in the middle of the making of this documentary.
At the age of sixteen, ELEGANCE was pushed out of his mother’s home as a result of an ultimatum she gave him over his then-burgeoning sexuality. Being from Jersey, he knew that if you had no place to go – you go to New York City. After a ten-year battle with homelessness across the Northeast, he spent five years in the United States Marine Corps as a Combat Production Specialist.
Elegance Bratton
Director
Nathan Proctor
Producer
Seth M. Rosen
Executive Producer
Aries Dela Cruz
Associate Producer
Michael Rodriguez
Associate Producer
Special thanks to Erasmia Gorla, Kyle Johnson, Jordan Sayers, Sergio Saenz, and Sophie Wilkowske.
The film will be completed in Summer 2016. We're very excited to bring the film, the people, and the music to your city. We're calling it the PIER KIDS: THE LIFE TOUR.
Stay tuned for the list of screenings. If you want the tour to come to you, please send an email to nathanryanproctor@gmail.com.
Nathan Proctor
Producer
nathanryanproctor@gmail.com