Last week I had the opportunity to attend the opening night screening of Ramin Bahrani’s Chop Shop where the director Ramin Bahrani, and young stars, Alejandro Polanco and Isamar Gonzales were all present. The film is about a young boy named Alejandro who is living in Willets Point in Queens, a neighborhood that F. Scott Fitzgerald called “The Valley of the Ashes.” He lives and works in a piecemeal auto body repair shop - a “chop shop.” His sister Isamar lives with him and works in a nearby taco van. We never learn much more about their past and instead spend the journey learning about their dreams for the future.

Before the screening, director Ramin Bahrani said in reference to the film’s neighborhood and main character:

“There’s a big billboard there that says make dreams happen, and the more time i spent in this location, which is 20 blocks 70 acres of junkyards and auto body shops, I came to wonder what kind of dreams could a young boy who was working there have. And so with my team we made this film and I hope for 85 minutes you would dream with this young boy.”

The film is subtle and lets you learn by watching the characters instead of having them tell you everything throug dialogue. Bahrani’s story of children and use of non-professional actors immediately brings to mind Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami and as A.O. Scott says in tyhe New York Times:

The oblique, naturalistic storytelling, the interest in children and the mingling of documentary and fictional techniques ” these have been hallmarks of the work of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi, but they are rarely deployed with such confidence or effectiveness by American filmmakers. “Chop Shop” suggests the potential of such an approach, which has roots in postwar Italian Neo-realism, to compel an encounter with local reality that is both poetic and clearsighted. [The New York Times]

The film is currently playing in New York City, but will hopefully move on to a town near you. Watch the trailer below and to listen to the rest of the Q&A from the screening I attended - you’ll hear from the young stars of the film!