Liberty Kid

LIBERTY KID is the story of two young friends surviving in the streets of Brooklyn after losing their jobs at the Statue of Liberty tourist site due to 9/11.

Derrick survived his racially divided high school (Blacks vs. Latinos) by passing for both sides. A legal resident alien, born in the Dominican Republic but raised in Brooklyn, Derrick has visions of going to college and getting out of the ghetto. But he’s stifled by low-wage jobs, child support payments, and detours into street life. Courted by Army recruiters, Derrick must negotiate his way out of his dead-end lifestyle.

Hot-headed Tico is Derrick’s best friend and worst adversary, making off with all the girls and ensnaring Derrick in low-grade hustling schemes (from selling drugs to white hipsters to orchestrating fraudulent car accidents) that keep them both trapped in the same place they started. Their volatile friendship is put to the test as they each follow different paths.

Things turn hopeful for Derrick when he earns his GED, but he discovers his only option for affording school may be to enlist in the Army -- just months prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“There's not a single wrong note in LIBERTY KID...Tender, wise and deceptively low-key... Quietly accumulates emotional power... not until the graceful, perfectly judged conclusion do we realize how much we care.” (New York Times, “Critic’s Pick”)

“Chaiken’s subtle narrative touch, along with the exceptionally strong performances of leads Al Thompson and Kareem Savinon, gives this one a rare emotional pull.” (New York Magazine)

“The least explicit yet most affecting film yet to depict New York in the weeks and months after the towers fell.” (New York Sun)

“An uncommonly acute, deftly played drama of the New York working class” (Nathan Lee, Village Voice)

“Epic and resonant… to her eternal credit, Chaiken keeps her movie grounded in her characters, allowing Thompson and Savinon's true-to-life performances to carry us through.” (Bilge Ebiri, Nerve)

“Sensitively drawn… Strong performances” (L.A. Weekly)

“A powerful drama... Chaiken works with a delicate touch... potent, thoroughly believable... deeply poignant” (Hollywood Reporter)

"Breezily indirect ... glaringly real... kinetic ...” (Variety)