SF protesters use projectors in creative way to convey message
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - A San Francisco filmmaker is using the Super Bowl as a back drop, along with projectors, to send a message that puts the spotlight on the Bay Area’s housing crisis.
Eric Paul Fournier, an Emmy Award winning documentary film maker, says Super Bowl week provides the perfect stage for this ‘guerilla’ style tactic.
It brings attention to what he describes as a crisis confronting many people— evictions of long-time tenants in the city.
"It doesn't hurt anything. They're very big. They're very visual. They're very eye catching," he says.
It's a silent protest.
"These are moving billboards that you don't have to worry about. It's not graffiti," Fournier says.
He says he seeks to disrupt not people's lives, but their thoughts.
Fournier and a small crew, with the help of a vehicle and his projector, put their message about what they call immoral Ellis Act evictions on the sides of buildings.
"We leave them on for 10 to 15 minutes and then we move on," says Fournier.
He started projecting his messages Wednesday with the play on words, "This is not a game."
He says evictions are playing with people's lives.
"We're hoping people will ask questions," said Fournier.
He says he's seen friend after friend get evicted perhaps legally under the state law, but he says it’s often immoral.
"It got to be alarming in the last year or two," says Fournier.
He tells KTVU he heard about a 60-year-old Robert Dodd, who's suffering from HIV-AIDS and facing eviction through word of mouth.
Dodd says he's fighting eviction from his flat on Larkin Street near the Broadway tunnel after living there for 20 years.
"I don't know what's going to happen to me," says Dodd.
He adds the projector protest gives him a voice.
"Yes, I'm very grateful because other people have decided to help to see that I don't lose my home," says Dodd.
Thursday night, Fournier and his crew displayed the images on half a dozen sites including Ghirardelli Square and the side of buildings where tenants are being evicted.
"We were trying to capitalize on the heat of the Super Bowl being in town and try to raise awareness for people who don't know what's going on," Fournier says.
This projector protest is part of the documentary Fournier is making about the plight of tenants facing eviction.
On Saturday night, he hopes to project images onto high-rises hopefully near Super Bowl City where it can get maximum exposure.