In Jackson Heights

Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens where immigrants of many nationalities live together in relative harmony. Walk into a beauty salon and you’re in India; visit the community center and you’ll hear Mexican immigrants telling their escape tales. The area is home to a whole gamut of minority groups, with Hari Krishnas, transgender people, Koran-studying children in hijabs, and elderly Jews commemorating the Holocaust. But Jackson Heights is only 20 minutes by subway from Manhattan, and local businesses are concerned about the neighborhood’s future; perhaps it’s about to suffer the same fate as nearby Brooklyn, where the hipsters have taken over and the threatened invasion of major retail chains have sparked skyrocketing rents. After previous films about big organizations such as a hospital, a prison and a ballet company, the acclaimed director Frederick Wiseman has turned his focus on the panoply of subcultures in this little corner of New York City. He takes the viewer along on his visits to a halal butcher, a nail studio, a dog grooming parlor, a belly dance lesson and meetings in the community center. In his customary fly-on-the-wall style, Wiseman films the goings-on in Jackson Heights without comment. Despite the differences between them, the residents are all happy to join forces to preserve their beloved neighborhood and battle against rent hikes.