The new documentary from journalist and filmmaker Caron Creighton opens with the residents of Wood Street Commons, an unhoused encampment in Oakland, California, engaged in a peaceful standoff with state authorities.
Creighton then jumps back in time, delving into day-to-day life in the camp as its residents face the slow, inevitable build toward eviction, which the encampment fought via civil disobedience only after all legal routes had been exhausted.
Over the course of 100 minutes, “Wood Street,” which screens at the Drexel Theater at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12 as part of Cinema Columbus, surfaces a moving portrait of civic action and community survival, Creighton centering the perspectives and voices of those unhoused people who are often left completely out of the conversation, particularly when it comes to the city development that impacts them…