Naima Coster 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Winner

Naima Coster, 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Winner with Plaque

Photo by Jonathan Jimenez

Naima Coster won the 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize on December 16th, 2011 at the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival's "Brooklyn Verbatim; Written Words and Moving Images" program for her story, "Remembering When Brooklyn Was Mine."

Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival Call for 2012 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Submissions

Bensonhurst Lifeguards, 1908. Shorpy Historical Photo Archive.


Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival Call for 2012 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Submissions

The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival is pleased to announce the establishment of the “Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize.” The Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize, a cash award of $400, will be awarded to the best Brooklyn-focused non-fiction essay or short story which is set in Brooklyn and is about Brooklyn and/or Brooklyn people/characters.

We are seeking compelling Brooklyn stories from writers with a broad range of backgrounds and ages who can render Brooklyn's rich soul and intangible qualities through the writer's actual experiences in Brooklyn.

From the collection of selected Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize submissions, five authors will be selected to read from their work and discuss their Brooklyn stories with the audience at our December 2012, Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival program.

These stories and several other submitted stories will be published on the Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival website and made available to the public.

Submission Deadline – November 15th, 2012.

Entry Fee – Free

The award is $400.

Submissions should be between 4 to 10 pages. (Up to 2500 words).

Send your Brooklyn Non-Fiction story as a Word document by email to: Brooklynfa@yahoo.com

Please include the story title, your name, email and phone number.

The submitted writings will be judged by a panel of Brooklyn writers.

Runners-up will be invited to read from their writing and their entries will be included in the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival’s Brooklyn Non-Fiction Collection of stories in an online anthology.

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Literature and Brooklyn Documentaries on Friday, December 16th, 2011

On Friday, December 16th, 2011, St. Francis College and the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival will present an evening of Brooklyn Non-Fiction Literature and Brooklyn Films titled, “Brooklyn Verbatim: Written Words & Moving Images.”

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Literature Program


There will be readings of Brooklyn non-fiction by five finalists for the Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize. The authors work collectively will illuminate their personal experience of living in Brooklyn through non-fiction short stories which articulate those intangible qualities which convey the character of Brooklyn. The winner of the 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize will be announced at this event.

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Finalists

“BK – 768” - Troy Longmire

"A Frum Story" - Cherry Lou Sy

“Last Time I saw Beautiful” – Nicole Goodwin

“Paradise a Memory” - Denise DiFulco

“Remembering When Brooklyn Was Mine” - Naima Coster

“Greenwood Ceremony” - Mitch Levenberg

“As If You Couldn’t Leave It” - Lauren Francis Wallach

“The Dreadlock” - Mike Stop Continues


There will be a discussion with the authors following the readings.


The Brooklyn films screening will include the following films:

Under the Roller Coaster
Directed by Lila Place

Documentary, color, 2005, 15 minutes

The Thunderbolt roller coaster in Coney Island was once a Brooklyn icon. Before its surprising demolition in 2000, it was also the home of Mae Timpano, a unique Brooklyn character. This is the story of her life under the roller coaster.

A Survivor’s Tale – (2007) – Directed by Nelson George
One man’s story of witnessing the loss of friends and family in Brooklyn over the years to the ravages of lives on the edge.




Hot Bagels – (1979)
Directed by Nick Manning –

Color – 16mm 7:00 mins

A cinematic Brooklyn flavored demonstration of bagel making with Martin Rosenblatt as narrator. The wry, effervescent Rosenblatt sings the charms of the Brooklyn Bagel and confirms the view that people from the mid-West wouldn’t know a bagel from a donut.


Coney Island Winter - (2011)
With Garland Jeffreys , Directed by Doug Webb
Black & White - – 3:48 mins

Garland Jeffreys’ wintery ode to Coney Island and its streets. Jeffreys, an acclaimed rock n’ roll singer and song writer pays homage to Brooklyn’s Coney Island through song and words.


Live Music Performance of ‘Coney Island Winter ‘by Mr. Garland Jeffreys

A discussion with the filmmakers will follow the screening.


Time: 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm. This program is FREE & Open to the Public.

St. Francis College, Maroney Theater(Room 7402), 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201

Event information please call (718) 522-2300

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize

Brooklyn Bridge, 1946 by Arthur Leipzig. Gelatin silver print, Brooklyn Museum.



The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival is pleased to announce the establishment of the “Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize.” The Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize, a cash award of $400, will be awarded to the best Brooklyn-focused non-fiction essay or short story which is set in Brooklyn and is about Brooklyn and/or Brooklyn people/characters.

We are seeking compelling Brooklyn stories from writers with a broad range of backgrounds and ages who can render Brooklyn's rich soul and intangible qualities through the writer's actual experiences in Brooklyn.

From the collection of selected Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize submissions, five authors will be selected to read from their work and discuss their Brooklyn stories with the audience at our December 16th , 2011, Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival program in partnership with St. Francis College in the Maroni Theatre.

These stories and several other submitted stories will be published on the Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival website and made available to the public.

Submission Deadline – November 30th, 2011.

Entry Fee – Free

The award is $400.

Submissions should be between 4 to 10 pages. (Up to 2500 words).

Send your Brooklyn Non-Fiction story as a Word document by email to: Brooklynfa@yahoo.com

Please include the story title, your name, email and phone number.

The submitted writings will be judged by a panel of Brooklyn writers.

Runners-up will be invited to read from their writing and their entries will be included in the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival’s Brooklyn Non-Fiction Collection of stories in an online anthology.

Aldo Tambellini - Brooklyn Avant Garde Artist Exhibition - "Black Zero" - October 4 – November 1, 2011

Aldo Tambellini - Brooklyn Avant Garde Artist Exhibition - Black Zero

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 6, 5pm – 8pm - 556 West 22nd Street (corner 11th Avenue.

Performance of Black Zero: Thursday, October 20, 6pm
Featuring: Aldo Tambellini, Christoph Draeger, Henry Grimes, Ben Morea, and Kewighbaye Kotee

Exhibition Dates: October 4 – November 1, 2011


The Chelsea Art Museum
556 W 22nd St, New York, NY
(212) 255-0719 chelseaartmuseum.org

The Boris Lurie Art Foundation is pleased to announce a major retrospective exhibition of paintings, sculpture, lumagrams, videograms, film, video, and television work (1960-1990) by the American avant-garde artist, Aldo Tambellini, entitled Black Zero.



Atlantic Avenue 1972 – by Aldo Tambellini (3:35 mins)

Avant-garde artist Aldo Tambellini, a pioneer of video art from the very early days of portable video-camera technology was witness to the grim street realities of Atlantic Avenue at the junction of Flatbush Avenue in 1972. Aldo’s documentary footage of the gritty atmosphere and street denizens of Atlantic Avenue of the 1970’s recalls downtown Brooklyn long before the advent of gentrification, boutiques and urban renewal.

Although Tambellini’s reputation as a new media pioneer has grown impressively in recent years throughout the performance and avant-garde film communities in America and abroad, with widespread acknowledgement of his early and important contributions to modes of art that had no name when he was creating paths among them, much of even his new media work is infused with a profound sense of the painterly that developed during a lifetime of collateral work in two-dimensions.



The present exhibition includes a broad sampling of his painting and related work over a period of more than three decades, covering the essential course of his long-standing and obsessive engagement with Black, which for him is, simply, the source and destination of everything; it is a spiritual and cosmic – and cosmogonic – principle akin to fire for Heraclitus. Over the decades of his work in black, Tambellini has evolved from the distressed, even pessimistic, observer of the destruction of the human and natural worlds to a philosopher looking to distant, and inner, space with equanimity, and even hope.