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directed by Jarrod Cann + Erick Stoll

Winner: Best Short Doc at Camden Intl. Film Festival, Atlanta DocuFest, Cindependent Film Festival, and Indie Memphis Film Festival

Official Selection: True/False Film Festival, Rooftop Film Festival, DTLA Film Festival, Athens Intl. Film Festival, Aspen Film Festival, and more..

In the Spring of 2001, the Black community of Over-the-Rhine in downtown Cincinnati arose in protest after unarmed 19-year-old, Timothy Thomas, was killed by a white officer named Steven Roach. In the years following, in order to allure prospective residents, Over-the-Rhine was swept into a new narrative of safety and Black erasure in the name of “urban renewal” by the creation of an arts and brewery district for the upper class. While it’s dangerous and inconvenient Black history is revitalized from existence, property values rise with presence of police, tax abatements, and zoning amendments to serve and protect those properties.

Filmed during the peak of Over-the-Rhine’s urban renewal, GOOD WHITE PEOPLE follows the story of Reginald Stroud who runs a karate school and candy store in the storefronts beneath the apartment he and his family have called home for over 10 years. When a for-profit developer purchases the building they rent, Reginald and his family are told they must vacate the building and are given only 45 days to find a new home and relocate their businesses while their neighborhood makes way for start-up incubators, yoga studios, and luxury condominiums.

Formerly a target of the policies created by the War On Drugs, Cincinnati’s inner-city is now the target of urban development corporations as its black population declines. GOOD WHITE PEOPLE hopes to start a conversation about the use of coded terminology like urban renewal, revitalization, and urban renaissance, and explore how these words help to trivialize and disguise the commercial practice of white supremacy, neocolonialism, and the economic othering of low-income residents.