Ethics At the Movies: Lift

Lift: Directed by David Peterson

Filmed over ten years, LIFT shines a spotlight on the invisible story of homelessness in America through the eyes of a group of young homeless and home-insecure ballet dancers in New York City. After performing all over the world, ballet dancer Steven Melendez returns to the Bronx shelter where he grew up to give back to his community, offering a New York Theatre Ballet workshop to children. His traumatic reaction to the shelter from his childhood sends him on an unexpected journey with three kids to reckon with a past he had escaped from through ballet. As young dance students, Victor, Yolanssie and Sharia face the same chasm of home insecurity that long separated Steven from his audience and makes the arts inaccessible to so many kids who share his background. The children he mentors offer him insight into turning a hidden trauma into dance, and together they make an aristocratic art form into an expression all their own.

Ethics at the Movies:

Ethics at the Movies has screened over 40 films and brought such distinguished guest artists as Peabody Award winning filmmaker Judith Helfand; photographer and filmmaker Ansley West; Regina Kelly, the inspiration behind the film American Violet; and Foreign Press Association Journalist of the Year Award and Peabody Award winner Saeed Kamali Dehghan, among others. Ethics at the Movies has partnered with the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, the Reel Abilities Film Festival, PBS, HBO Documentary Films, POV, and Emory Film Studies.

Parking:

Parking for White Hall is the Oxford Road Parking Deck located at 1390 Oxford Road NE, Atlanta 30307. For more information regarding visitor parking at Emory University including fees and operation times click

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Emory University, Goodrich C White Hall, 301 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, United States