‘Brighton 4th’ brings south Bklyn
immigrant communities to light
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Brighton Beach has taken
center stage with one of the
year’s most celebrated fi lms,
with the neighborhood’s special
grit and unique character
playing a central role in
Brighton 4th.
The southern Brooklyn
neighborhood has seen its
share of time on the silver
screen, perhaps most notably
in hometown hero Darren
Aronofsky’s 2000 drug melodrama
Requiem for a Dream,
or its turn as “Hove Beach” in
Grand Theft Auto IV.
But not until the release of
Brighton 4th — now playing
in select American cinemas
— has the immigrant community
from the former Soviet
Union, which makes up the
bread and butter of the neighborhood,
gotten its time on the
silver screen to realistically,
and devastatingly, showcase
COURIER L 22 IFE, FEB. 11–17, 2022
the pitfalls of the American
Dream.
Brighton 4th, a Georgianand
Russian-language fi lm
by Georgian auteur Levan
Koguashvili, is in the midst of
a theatrical run at the Village
East Cinema in Manhattan
after winning best fi lm, best
screenplay, and best actor in
the “international narrative”
section of the Tribeca Film
Festival last year.
The fi lm follows Kakhi, an
aging former wrestler from
Tbilisi, Georgia who travels to
Brighton Beach to spend time
with his son, who wants to be a
doctor but for now is living in
a hostel on Brighton 4th Street
with a hodgepodge of other
immigrants from the former
Soviet Union as he attempts to
get a green card.
In Brighton Beach, Kakhi
learns that his son, Soso, is
struggling mightily to get
Kakhi (Levan Tedaishvili), left, tries on a glove in Brighton Beach in “Brighton 4th.” Tribeca Film Festival
his green card as he moves
boxes for a living in the promised
land. He has a girlfriend
whom he wants to marry in
order to expedite his application,
but he cannot pay the
application fee because of his
mounting gambling debt to local
mobsters. Kakhi, whose
son means the world to him,
takes on odd jobs to help him
pay back the debt.
Kakhi is masterfully portrayed
by Levan Tediashvili,
73, a real-life former Olympic
wrestler whose only other acting
credit was in 1987. But the
real star of the show is the ensemble:
Kakhi’s sister-in-law
who runs the hostel and gets
him work, the opera singer
working as a doorman, the
man who made it to Brighton
Beach after a perilous and
expensive boat ride from the
Bahamas, Soso’s American
citizen girlfriend whom he
wishes to marry for his green
card.
The residents of the hostel
all exchange long conversations
with one another over
sulghuni cheese, which Kakhi
smuggled in from Tbilisi,
while discussing the travails
they face in Brighton Beach,
where they expected high and
mighty things but, as immigrants
(some undocumented)
fi nd themselves in seemingly
the same situations as in
the old country — like debt,
crummy bosses, dilapidated
housing, and a sense that the
American Dream is a farce.
BY JESSICA PARKS
Sea-dwelling creatures
from southern Brooklyn are
rejoicing, as Coney Island’s
Mermaid Parade is returning
for its annual summer kickoff
this year — giving Brooklynites
a chance to party with
a classic signature celebration
of ancient mythology and
creatures from under the sea
“We are really looking forward
to bringing back all the
things that made it New York’s
most beloved parade,” said
Adam Rinn, executive director
of Coney Island USA.
The 40th Annual Mermaid
Parade is planned for Saturday,
June 18 (after a twoyear
hiatus due to none other
than the ongoing coronavirus
pandemic) in mostly its
traditional fashion — bringing
thousands of participants
dressed up from under the sea
and hundreds of themed fl oats
cruising through the seaside
neighborhood— albeit in compliance
with the current Covid
protocols at that time.
“We will certainly abide by
any Covid guidelines that the
city puts out, the most important
thing is really the safety
of our participants and our
viewers,” Rinn said.
Coney Island USA, the
neighborhood’s eponymous
public arts organization, has
been hosting the yearly street
festival since 1983 with three
goals in mind, according to its
press release — to give meaning
behind the street names Mermaid
and Neptune in Coney
Island, to create “self-esteem
in a district that is often disregarded
as ‘entertainment,’” and
provide an opportunity for “artistic
New Yorkers to fi nd self
expression in public.”
Each year, the organization
crowns a King Neptune and
Queen Mermaid, and have on
occasion bestowed the role to
celebrities in previous years
— such as Queen Latifah, Neil
Gaiman and David Byrne. Coney
Island USA did not yet announce
who will play the characters
for this year’s event, but
Rinn said the roles will likely
be announced at the organization’s
spring gala on March 26.
While each year the theme
of the parade is centered
around the underwater world,
Rinn said the creativity and
the underlying themes in the
participants’ handmade costumes
sets each year’s event
apart from previous years.
“It’s really the creativity of
the public, the marchers, the
participants that bring that
really cutting-edge creativity
and artfulness and show it to
the streets,” he said. “While
each year, we don’t particularly
theme the parade, you
will always tend to see themes
around and in the parade.”
Rinn said he expects to see
the “evil virus” depicted in
a few costumes at this year’s
events.
“I would venture to guess
that the evil virus may be making
more than one appearance,”
he told Brooklyn Paper.
The parade down Surf Avenue,
the neighborhood’s main
drag, launches at W. 21st Street
and continues to W.10th Street,
where paraders and push-pull
fl oats will turn towards the
boardwalk — motorized fl oats
will continue down Surf Avenue
to exit the parade — and
will parade on the boardwalk
before disbanding at Steeplechase
Park.
But there is not only a parade
at the Mermaid Parade
— this is Coney Island, guys —
there is also a costume contest
with three equally ridiculous
judges and a Beach Ceremony,
which is the traditional opening
of the ocean for the summer
swimming season.
This will potentially be the
fi rst time the annual event will
be held in-person in two years.
Last year, the parade was
planned to end the summer
swimming season in September,
as the organization did
not have enough time to plan
a June event while awaiting
whether Covid protocols would
allow for their large-scale
street festival but eventually
canceled it as the rise of the
Delta variant threatened the
Five Boroughs.
Mermaidens and under the sea characters are expected to return to Surf
Avenue on June 18.
Inside insight
Mermaid Parade to return on June 18
BROOKLYN
Fins fi nally return