The downtown underground filmmaker, Nick Zedd, is fighting eviction. No, not from the Lower East Side. As Page Six explains, he’s tangling with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. Here’s more from Richard Johnson’s story:
Nick Zedd, director of “They Eat Scum” and “Geek Maggot Bingo,” is the last holdout in the Hotel Virreyes, which is being renovated to reopen next year for “digital nomads, perpetual travelers or occasional escapists,” according to its new management. While Slim owns the hotel, the Selina hotel and hostel chain is refurbishing it and operating it.
The Museum of Modern Art is planning to screen several of Zedd’s films in January as part of its exhibition, “Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983.” Zedd, who moved to Mexico City a few years ago, won’t be coming to New York for the screenings, fearing that he’ll be prevented from returning.
Lower East Side documentarian and activist Clayton Patterson has been trying to draw attention to Zedd’s situation. He told Page Six, “Mexico was going to be the land of hope and glory, but gentrification in Mexico City is as brutal as in New York City.”
