"Vigilante Vigilante" and Q\&A

Playing March 7th and 9th
After the March 7th screening: a panel discussion with director Max Good, artists Espo and Lava 1 \& 2.
After the March 9th screening: a conversation between director Max Good and retired Vandals Squad Cop Steve Mona.
'Vigilante Vigilante'
(Max Good, 2011, 86 min.)
A new breed of crime-fighter now stalks the urban landscape: the anti-graffiti vigilante. These dedicated blight-warriors stop at nothing to rid their neighborhoods and cities of street art, stickers, tags, and posters. Yet several of these vigilantes have become the very menace they set out to eliminate. In their relentless attempt to stamp out graffiti, they have turned to illegally and destructively painting other people's property. Vigilante Vigilante is the story of two filmmakers who set out to expose these mysterious characters and discover a battle of expression that stretches from the streets to academia.
THE SPEAKERS:
Lava 1\&2 is a legendary aerosol artist and one of the first individuals to conceive of and design (by hand) hip-hop party flyers in the 70s in New York City.
Steve Mona as he states on his blog is "a retired cop who doesn't care if people smoke pot as long as they don't do it while driving." He "ran the Nypd Vandal Squad for over a decade" but believes "that graffiti isn't the problem, it's where they put it that is."
Steve Powers aka Espo was born and raised and Philadelphia, then moved to New York City in 1994. After stints as publisher of On the Go Magazine, author of the book The Art Of Getting Over, and full-time graffiti writer, Powers opened his studio in Janurary of 1998. Since then he has shown at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, The 49th Venice Bienalle, The Luggage Store in San Francisco, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. He lives and works in Manhattan.