Koch

“Fiercely honest.… Intrigues and intoxicates like a David Mamet stage play.… A riveting portrait of a towering and polarizing man. It's also great fun!”—Asawin Suebsaeng, Mother Jones

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who died in February, was ferocious, charismatic, and hilariously blunt—in other words, the quintessential New Yorker. He ran New York from 1978 to 1989: a decade marked by near-bankruptcy, rampant crime, a municipal corruption scandal, and the burgeoning AIDS epidemic. Through candid interviews and rare archival footage, first-time filmmaker (and former Wall Street Journal reporter) Neil Barsky has crafted an intimate and revealing portrait of this intensely private man, his legacy as a political titan, and the town he helped transform. (95 mins., DCP)