Two days before the festival, I was in Bryant Park waiting for a catering shift when a homeless man approached me. He politely asked for any money I could spare, and I apologized for not having cash on me. We wished each other a good day and he moved on to a couple next to me. Before he could speak, the man in the couple said, "Hey man, could I borrow a dollar?"
It was a cruel thing to do, ridiculing a homeless man for asking for a meal. He was obviously shaken, but politely moved on, his day worse than a moment before. As I sat there, I contemplated saying something but the moment passed. Then, just before I left, the girl sitting with him left and he was alone. As I gathered my things, I decided to do it. There is too much bad feeling in our world at present, and New York can be an unnecessarily cruel place, but no one says anything. I apologized for inconveniencing him but wanted him to know that I found it "pretty shitty" to treat a guy in need that way. He tried to talk, but I said I wasn't interested in a discussion, just thought he should know men are judged by their actions alone and he should think about his.
Two blocks later, he caught up with me and talked to me for fifteen minutes outside my catering job. To make a long story short, we swapped email addresses, he apologized profusely, and we parted ways. That night, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I got home and saw he'd sent me a Friend Request on Facebook, with the message, "I have a video you want to see." I clicked the video and it played, showing the homeless man from the park. The guy had gone back, found the homeless guy, and was in a restaurant getting him dinner. He also was going to set him up with a friend hiring in construction, the profession the man was laid off from.
It was a surreal moment that stuck with me. We shot all night and edited all day. I'm happy with what we accomplished and hope you enjoy the film.
