This video portrays a bouncing essence of New Orleans. It was filmed by coincidence, totally unplanned. People told us to avoid particular hoods of New Orleans. “Those areas are sketchy”, they said. In the US, when a White person says “sketchy”, it often means “Black”. Having no bounds with such notions, we, a duo of refugees and filmmakers from Ukraine (yeah, let’s talk about sketchy places) went to this jewel of a city on swamps. Skipping the French Quarter tourist crap – right into Treme, Algiers and 9th Ward. What we realized there, and confirmed many times since, is that “sketchy” places are the only places in this country where people are real and life is blooming. So one day we just rode our bicycles through Treme, and saw towers of smoke filled with engine roars and the music that possesses your booty no matter its color. Immediately bewitched, we jumped inside to find out that what seemed a Christmas-scale national celebration to us, was just a regular Sunday block party to the warm-hearted people of New Orleans. And instead of rejecting the nosey outsiders, they’ve shared their moments of joy and beauty with us. Grateful for that generous human connection we made this video to pass the joint.

Filmed by Natasha Masharova Natasha Masharova

Edited by Anatoli Ulyanov

Production of vvhy.tv