I was over on the Wedge blog and Diana Bird’s post ‘Local Lives in New York’ was really interesting. She was talking about a new documentary film that is out called, ‘Twilight Becomes Night’. It’s a documentary about local shops and their closure in New York. Virginie-Alvine Perrette ( the filmmaker) follows the lives and stories of five Neighbourhood stores in NYC watching them in their struggle for survival against larger competitors.

It is amazing the way the short clip cuts straight to the point of shopping locally. It is also refreshing to see the way the community actively want to prevent their towns from becoming homogenized. The shop owners talk openly about ‘character of place’ being constructed by people and businesses - the idea these two things help to make an area unique and different from other geographical places. The documentary focuses on what neighbourhood shops means to local people and the larger community that they serve - when a local business is lost a part of the social fabric of the area is lost with it.

It is really moving, and although based on American neighbourhoods it’s still extremely applicable to the UK. We mirror what is happening in the US in the respect that we too, are losing local neighbourhood shops fast. I think it is a great piece of filmmaking, and anything that can help raise awareness about shopping local is all good.