Tickets are now available at the Old Greenbelt Theatre’s box office and online for Greenbelter Susan Gervasi’s new documentary film, Defending Utopia: The Greenbelt News Review at 80. The film uses the News Review as a focal point to weave the compelling story of a city invented to demonstrate an ideal and which has reinvented itself anew, continuously, since.
Amid controversy and consensus, community spirit and dissension, Greenbelt morphed from a federal rental project and utopian concept to one of the largest cooperative housing endeavors in the nation. As the area around it grew, the original city became the hub of the busy and diverse suburb of today. The film captures the soul and essence of a little newspaper with a big impact. It’s also the story of how courageous residents and newspaper staff faced up to a developer who threatened to muzzle the press and hold staff personally at risk for libel damages. To read more on this story, click here.