An ode to “all the forgotten parts of NYC that live and breathe with real people”, GANG follows Mel, Inf and D as they work through the sticky, beautiful nature of formative youth; growing into/out of and from your surroundings, your people - together.

GANG manages to capture the sense of ownership and love you have growing up in a place where it makes you as much as you make it. This city is theirs. Revisiting the film six years later, there’s something truly magical in its humble generosity. No phones, no distractions, the friends and the city forge a sense of chaotic harmony, giving each other the space and time to just be.

Undeniably, there is a yearning for this feeling now. It’s just over a year since the pandemic began and our lives have collectively changed, been destabilised and left so many disenfranchised (something Meriem Bennani articulated so effortlessly in her 2020 animated series 2 Lizards). Now, in 2021, GANG embodies a yearning for that feeling when the city slows down with you, listens to you and you finally get a chance to breathe with it, move to it, look around and be nowhere and somewhere simultaneously with the people you love.

Text by Cairo Clarke