Chop Shop

Chop Shop is the second feature film from Iranian-American director Rahmin Bharani. Set in the the auto body junkyard stretch of Willet’s Point in Queens, Chop Shop tells the story of an entrepreneurial Latino orphan (Alejandro Polanco) who lives and works in the bustling locale, stealing and hustling to support both himself and his older teenage sister (Isamar Gonzales).

The film has already won Bharani the Film Independent’s “Some to Watch” Spirit Award and profile in Filmmaker Magazine, Premiere, and the New York Magazine.

Bharani says he was encouraged to take Chop Shop to schools by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who first saw the film at Cannes (pictured above). Egoyan opened this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, introducing Hana Makhmalbaf’s Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame, which also has children as the main catalysts of the story.

The 5th Annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival wraps tomorrow with Osvalde Lewat-Hallade’s documentary A Love During The War.

For those of you who missed last night’s Q&A with Oscar-winning director, Alex Gibney, you can now view his interview with “The Hour’s” George Stroumboulopoulous on the CBC Website.

Ramin Bahrani, director and writer of Chop Shop was in Queens, New York, last night to preview the film. Chop Shop was shot primarily in the Iron Triangle, a twenty block section of Queens. The film opens February 27th in NYC and plays the Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival on March 3rd.

After the preview, Bahrani along with the film’s young star Alejando Planco answered a Q&A moderated by Liva Bloom. You can read excerpt from that Q&A at The Film Panel Notetaker.