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HARD TIMES: LOST ON LONG ISLAND

HBO Documentary Film Premiering July 9

HBO Film chronicles the casualties of the Great Recession in the birthplace of the American suburban dream – Long Island, NY

Over 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Over 5 million Americans have been looking for work for over twenty-seven weeks. Over 400,000 Americans have lost their unemployment benefits since January. Over 342,000 Americans dropped out of the work force altogether in April. They gave up and are not even counted in the unemployment statistics.

These numbers represent our family, friends and our neighbors who are out of work. HBO’s new documentary HARD TIMES: LOST ON LONG ISLAND tells the stories of families struggling in the wake of the Great Recession in their own words. As The New York Times noted in their editorial on May 4, “Without further government help, …millions of today’s unemployed and underemployed Americans will pay the price for the rest of their lives, in lost earnings, lost homes and shattered retirement hopes. This is no time for political game-playing or ideological posturing. Americans need help now.”

Set on Long Island, New York, the birthplace of the post-war suburban American Dream (Levittown), the documentary chronicles the lives of four families from the summer of 2010 through the end of the year. Playing by the rules by going to college, getting good jobs and buying modest homes in good communities didn’t prepare them for what has become an indiscriminate middle-class foreclosure. We witness the escalating obstacles and despair as these people search in vain for employment while their plight and pain are too often invisible to the political and media elite.

Unlike many documentaries, this film has no expert talking heads, no narration or commentary. HARD TIMES: LOST ON LONG ISLAND starkly and directly gives these Americans a voice, reminding us of their humanity and restores respect and dignity to their struggle. As the film airs on HBO, it is nearly a year and half since the filming was completed and the story isn’t over - people in the documentary and across the country are still out of work and trying to rebuild their lives.

HARD TIMES: LOST ON LONG ISLAND will premiere on HBO on July 9. The film was produced by Blowback Productions and director Marc Levin who have a 20 year working relationship with HBO including films such as Triangle: Remembering the Fire, Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags, Mob Stories, Heir to an Execution, Prisoners of the War on Drugs, The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row and Soldiers in the Army of God. HARD TIMES: LOST ON LONG ISLAND won the prestigious Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 2011.