For years, the profitable world of New
York City construction has been rife with conflict and drama;
so what better place could there be for a "third-generation
construction guy"-turned-filmmaker to build his first movie?
Joseph Ariola, a long-time member of the International Union
of Operating Engineers, Local 15 in New York City, makes his
big-screen directorial debut with "Coalition," a gritty
independent film he also produced and co-wrote with retired New
York City Police Detective Robert Cea.
Filmed on location in Williamsburg and Long Island City, and
inspired by some of Ariola’s real-life experiences, "Coalition"
is about how the construction business is "systematically
shaken down" by minority non-union labor and mobsters who
help broker the deals. Depending on whom you ask, the word "coalition"
could mean "equal rights for minority workers" or "ruthless
gangs that force contractors to hire their guys, so they can
get a kick-back or give them a no-show job, so the job site would
be safe," Ariola told GO Brooklyn.
In the movie, which draws heavily on both themes, the Wu Tang
Clan’s Raekwon plays Akey, the head of the notorious, fictional
Survival of the Black Man coalition group. Akey convinces his
followers he wants to help them get jobs when all he really cares
about is cold, hard cash.
Co-starring Frank Vincent from "The Sopranos," Michael
Wright and Chuck Zito from "Oz" and Stephanie "Trinity"
Finochio from World Wrestling Entertainment, the drama Ariola
hopes will be viewed as a modern-day version of the union classic,
"On the Waterfront," is set to premiere on Sept. 29
at The Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts on Long Island
University’s Brooklyn campus.
"It’s been a long time in the making," Ariola said.
"I wrote a couple of other scripts just playing around when
I was a little younger and some production people here in New
York said, ’These are big-budget movies.’ I wrote a story about
Vietnam and they said, ’If you’re going to get your feet wet
in independent film, you have to do more of a story, more of
a drama that could be done a little inexpensively.’
"So, I turned my attention to the coalition, which I felt
was more of a drama," continued Ariola. "And it was
more in the industry that I knew well, and I knew I could get
a lot of help with job sites and machinery and trucks to do the
movie because the more I learned about how hard it was to make
a movie, the more I started to mold the story around what I felt
my strengths were."
The Long Island native says that before he became a full-time,
Williamsburg-based filmmaker, he wrote his screenplays when he
had down-time or during his lunch breaks when he was working
construction. He started writing "Coalition" about
10 years ago.
"I was always interested in the [real-life] coalition. It
was always fascinating to me," he said, recalling how coalition
members would occasionally arrive on work sites and shut down
jobs by pressuring foremen and laborers to give up assignments
to non-union labor.
"They really wouldn’t go after the operating engineer guys
because they knew the operating engineers’ union was a pretty
strong union and, besides, they weren’t really interested in
running the machines because they felt that a lot of the guys
really weren’t qualified," Ariola noted. "So, they
really went after the laborer jobs. It interested me how this
whole thing was going on."
The filmmaker says conditions started improving in the 1990s
as unions became more diverse (with more members who were minorities)
and as then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani cracked down on the mob. That
said, Ariola says his crew experienced some anxiety when he told
them what his new movie was about and where they would be filming.
"There was always the fear factor of the real coalition,"
he said. "It was very, very hard in the beginning getting
crew members on, once they knew what the topic was and once they
knew there was a chance they would come face-to-face with real
coalition groups and stuff. So, a lot of people were intimidated
by that and we kept telling them that: ’You’re just for hire;
you’re a hired crew member. If there’s a problem, we’ll deal
with the problem.’"
Convincing New York City officials that everything would be OK
proved to be a little more difficult.
"The city actually red-flagged my project in the very, very
beginning, because they felt that we had too many tough elements
– Wu Tang because of Raekwon, the Hell’s Angels because of Chuck
Zito. We had organized crime because of the topic, and then we
had the coalition. So they actually red-flagged my project, saying
that they weren’t going to tolerate any kind of problem on the
set," confided Ariola. "But to be honest with you,
we kind of grew on them because we went through – knock on wood
– 24 days of shooting and we didn’t have any problems with anybody
on the set. Everyone was totally professional and the city became
a fan of ours after that, I guess, for just doing what we said
we were going to do and getting through it."
"Coalition" will premiere
Sept. 29 at 7 pm at The Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts
on Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus (at the corner of
Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb avenues in Downtown Brooklyn).
Tickets are $10. For more information, call (718) 488-1624 or
visit www.kumbletheater.org.
The movie will be released by Image Entertainment on DVD Nov.
7.
