Owned: A Tale of Two Americas

How many of us know the dark backstory behind the creation of suburbia? Director Giorgio Angelini’s visually rich, energetic film untangles the complex history of homeownership in America. Revealing the roots of its racist underpinnings and the systematic unequal division of opportunity between whites and blacks in the U.S. housing economy, the film demonstrates how racial inequality was institutionalized in the postwar U.S. housing market, with effects that continue to reverberate today. Distinctly different narratives of contemporary Americans in New York, Los Angeles, and Baltimore form the basis for this engaging exploration - among them, a retired New York City cop and his friends; a bombastic realtor in tony Orange County; a young, aspiring “house flipper” in the black neighborhoods of Baltimore; and an interracial couple living in the mid-century modern utopian community of Mar Vista, California. Through their stories, the tangled legacy of middle-class homeownership in America is unwound, revealing how the conception of the American Dream came to be reality for some, but not others. (Full Frame Documentary Film Festival)