“80 Blocks From Tiffany’s” was filmed in the South Bronx in the summer of 1979. It is a documentary about the street gangs that controlled the most dangerous neighborhood in America. The film captures a unique culture in rare form. The gang members were known murderers, rapists and thieves. The film’s director, Gary Weis, portrays these young men in a candid way unlike the way they were portrayed in the media.

“I’m not too much for making social commentary, so I just filmed what was happening,” Weis said.

“There’s no guilt when you’re watching this film,” said Robin Lambaria, director and Cofounder of the Marfa Film Festival. “You don’t feel sorry for the people in it, and you forget that these are some really bad guys.”

The documentary was based on an article written by adventurous journalist Jon Bradshaw in 1977. To research the article, Bradshaw befriended the gang members, and they trusted him with their stories. The result was a 19-page article in Esquire magazine.

Weis read the article and immediately wanted to make a film about the gangs. He hoped Bradshaw would help. Weis happened to know Bradshaw’s wife, film producer Carolyn Pfeiffer, and he called her to get in touch with her husband. Pfeiffer is the film’s first Marfa connection. She moved to town in 2007.

Bradshaw agreed to lead Weis into the Bronx and to the young gang members he had befriended.

“At that time, the South Bronx was such a dangerous neighborhood that you could not go there if you were an outsider,” Pfeiffer said.

Weis and Bradshaw took renowned cinematographer Joan Churchill with them, and they ventured into the South Bronx for 10 days of filming.

“It was pretty wild. It was like the old west there,” Weis said. “The cops climbed through windows to get the guys out of their clubhouses to talk to us.”

Pfeiffer remembers that when Bradshaw would call her in between filming, she could hear gunshots in the background. “He would call from a street corner somewhere, and he’d yell into one of those huge cell phones they had at the time, ‘What? Honey, I can’t hear you!’” Bradshaw died suddenly of an illness in November 1986. He was 48.

The film was funded by NBC News and was supposed to air during NBC’s 11:30pm time slot. Weis was a regular contributor of short films for Saturday Night Live. When the people at NBC saw the film, they decided not to show it.
“They chickened out,” Weis said.

“The film is pretty raw, and to NBC News, this was virgin territory. No network television station had ever shown anything like this,” Pfeiffer said.

So that was that. “80 Blocks From Tiffany’s” never aired.

Twenty years later, the film began an unlikely resurgence, and this marks the film’s second Marfa connection. Local filmmaker David Hollander said he is always on the lookout for great, undiscovered films.

“I saw ‘80 Blocks From Tiffany’s’ about 10 years ago, and I was blown away,” he said. “I think it’s one of the finest documentary films ever made.”

Hollander began publicizing the film in any way he could. He wrote an article about it for Wax Poetics, a journal focused on African American music, which led to a presentation of the film at a hip-hop festival in Los Angeles. “‘80 Blocks’ has gained a sort of cult following,” Hollander said. The few copies of the film, all on VHS, sell for hundreds of dollars online.

Last December, Hollander showed the film to Cory Van Dyke, the programmer and cofounder of the Marfa Film Festival. Van Dyke and the rest of the film festival staff were impressed.

“Right away when I watched it, I thought, ‘This is our opening film.’” Lambaria said.

Then Van Dyke asked Pfeiffer, a Marfa Film Festival adviser, if she had ever heard of “80 Blocks From Tiffany’s.” Pfeiffer said her mouth fell open, and she replied, “Of course, but how do you know about it?” Pfeiffer and Hollander were unaware of each other’s connections to the film.

Pfeiffer called Weis, and he agreed to come to the festival to present the film. Far away from where it started, “80 Blocks From Tiffany’s” will make a welcome debut in Marfa.

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Kathleen Nacozy is a Ballroom Marfa intern, a Texas Tech School of Law graduate, an attorney at law, and a freelance writer.

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The Marfa Film Festival opens at 4pm Wednesday, April 29 with a street party at the corner of El Paso and Austin streets. The film, “80 Blocks from Tiffany’s” will be screened at 6:30pm at the Crowley Theater, followed by a question and answer session with Director Gary Weis. The film has mature themes and isn’t proper for young children. After that, the festival-opening party begins at Padre’s. Information: www.marfafilmfestival.org.