Lift

2022, NR, US, Documentary, 87 minutes
  Florida Premiere

Director: David Petersen
Producers: Mary Recine, David Petersen
Cast: Steven Melendez, Diana Byer, Victor Abreu, YolanssieCardona, Sharia Blockwood

Filmed over 10 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 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 Melendez 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.