The Originals

Short Documentary Film Award, Sponsored by the University of Miami

In September 2012, Cristina Costantini and Alfie Koetter moved into a brownstone apartment on Union Street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. It didn’t take long for them to fall in love with the neighborhood and their landlord, Matty “Square” Ruggiero.

Ten years later, and now living across the country, Cristina and Alfie reconnect with Matty to hear him and his childhood friends, the Union Street Boys, tell their story of what it was like to grow up in South Brooklyn, where money was tight but friendships were tighter.