BROOKLYN — They’re spreading Brooklyn love all the way to Paris.
A group of teens and young adults are taking their filmmaking talents to France this summer thanks to a nonprofit arts organization sponsoring an international exchange program.
Gowanus-based Reel Works will send five students from Brooklyn and New Jersey to the City of Lights in August to create a short movie with their Parisian counterparts.
The nonprofit works with “at-risk youth” and is partnering with French organization 1000 Visages, which will also bring five Parisian students to New York to work with the teens.
“Many of these students haven’t traveled outside the country before and they’ve already exhibited that they have a lot to say and have a lot of great skills,” said Laurel Gwizdak, Reel Works’ Education Director.
“We want to provide them with more and more opportunities that will open their eyes to a new way of being and seeing, and to learn from their peers on the other side of the world.”
The Reel Works group met the 1000 Visages participants via Skype last week to discuss possible plotlines and story ideas, Gwizdak added.
Potential themes for the two teams include roadblocks to their dreams, race in the film industry and the underrepresentation of minorities in the U.S. and France.
Once the French students arrive in Brooklyn, the New York team will show them around their neighborhoods for a week and collaborate in shooting and editing a short film.
"They'll get to know Brooklyn through the eyes of these kids who know it best," Gwizdak said.
The same schedule will apply when Reel Work students arrive in Paris on August 23 and participants may be placed with host families, organizers said.
The summer project will culminate in a screening of their two films in France.
Reel Works provides free, year-round filmmaking classes for individuals ages 14 through 20, allowing students to create movies about issues close to their heart.
Dexter Dugar Jr., 22, highlighted his life in foster care and love for the subway system in his first film after joining Reel Works in 2013.
He said the organization helped him gain multiple professional and life skills and even led to jobs as a production assistant.
“It helped me see other options for what I wanted to do when I got older and helped me come out of my shell,” Dugar Jr. said.
“If it wasn’t for Reel Works, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now. I think about it a lot and it’s kind of bleak.”
The Paris program will be the first international trip for the Coney Island native.
“I finally get to leave the country. I’m excited to see the city itself. How does it feel in relation to my home? Just the oxygen — how does that taste?” Dugar Jr. added.
Other students participating in the project hail from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Borough Park, and Weehawken, New Jersey.
Reel Works launched a Kickstarter campaign this month to cover all travel and production costs for the group.
