Raised in a Lower East Side NYC project, Lee Quiñones’ urgency and need to express himself drove him to become one of the greatest artists to emerge from the 70s/80’s graffiti movement.
SYNOPSIS
1970s NYC was a city in crisis. From the ashes of its lawless streets sprang an art movement that would resonate around the world. ‘Graffiti’ covered the subway trains, instigated by teenagers, who felt they had no voice. They were hunted and criminalized. Yet buoyed by their impact on the city, they pushed forward with their urgent messages.
Lee Quiñones, grew up on the Lower East Side. From a very young age, he knew he was an artist. He overcame challenging circumstances as the city’s neglect brought drugs, AIDS, and devastating loss to his Puerto Rican neighborhood.
Starting at age 13, Lee stole into the tunnels and painted trains. He was on the MTA’s most wanted list by age 16. Millions of people witnessed his cars. Lee understood his power to reach an audience and felt his paintings were a gift of New York City. Lee, always the activist philosopher, painted his city bright, bold, and full of ideas and imagination. By 1981, Lee was celebrated in museums and European galleries, becoming one of the most acclaimed NYC street artists, a pioneer in the genesis of hip-hop culture.
Lee is not only an artist but a teacher, storyteller and instigator. This is a story about his life as an artist, the Puerto Rican community he was nurtured by and his incredible journey from the streets into the fine art world.
The film will explore his continuing impact on young people and the international street art movement.
Director Statement
I think of myself as primarily a narrative filmmaker. I was unable to get financing for my narrative films. After many years of trying, the impetus to make “Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat” (2017) fell in my lap. I bought a camera and the film turned into a feature. Lee and I became friends during the making and promotion of the film. As we did with BOOM, we are working with a small intimate crew for LEE. And like “Boom” this film will also be about an artist’s beginnings, NYC and the community that raised Lee, following him to his current status in art history. But where in BOOM the protagonist was no longer with us, others had to tell his story, in this film our subject is a living artist. He tells his own story and that leads the film. As we listen to him telling his story he describes his path. The environment and times that shaped him, giving him the urgency to express himself through art and a need to have a voice. And how he, a kid from NYC projects, knew from a very early beginning that he was an artist. With extremely limited resources, Lee found a way to express himself painting whole subway cars undercover of night with his thoughts, philosophy and feelings, starting a whole movement of street art internationally. Continuing his art practice now in a studio, his work continues to be seen in museums and galleries.
Supporter Statement
NYTimes quote from Sara's last film, "Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat"
The New York Times called Sara Driver's documentary, Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, a "Beguiling Look at a Teenage Basquiat" and a NYT Critic's Pick, praising its "beguiling" and enthralling tribute to the artist by paying him proper tribute through the stories of his friends, lovers, and collaborators, while acknowledging loss by withholding his voice and thus allowing his art to speak.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director - Sara Driver
Director: You Are Not I (1982 48 min), Sleepwalk (1986 78 min), When Pigs Fly (1993 94min). The Bowery (1994 10 min), Boom For Real: The Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017 78min).
Producer: Stranger than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984), Permanent Vacation (Jim Jarmusch, 1979)
Co-Producer: Uncle Howard (Aaron Brookner, 2016)
Prizes: Georges Sadoul Prize 1987, Special Prize Mannheim Film Festival 1987, Tribute Award Leffest Film Festival (2015), Indie Star Award for Work American Film Festival Wraclow (2018), Sundance Short Film Special Jury Award: Screenwriting for Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver (2022)
Retrospectives: Her films have had retrospectives in Denmark, Buenos Aires, Anthology Film Archives NYC, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, TIFF Cinematique, Toronto, Maine International Film Festival and Wroclaw Film Festival.
Her films are available in a boxset from Filmswelike.
Producer
Rachel Dengiz
Rachel Dengiz is a two-time Emmy Award winning producer. She began her career working for independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, where she worked on both Coffee & Cigarettes (2003) and Broken Flowers (2005). Her recent credits include The Punk Singer (2013), Emmy Award winning Medora (2013), Emmy Award winning series Park Bench with Steve Buscemi (2014-2015), Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017), 17 Blocks (2019), Elvis Goes There: Sofia Coppola (2019), 1-800-On-Her-Own (2024) and A Sense of Beauty (2024). In addition to producing LEE: We are Our Times, Rachel is also producing an animated documentary feature directed by the Kloster Brothers, as well as a documentary on cartoonist Charles Addams, directed by Sara Driver.
Tamara Warren is a writer, entrepreneur, and cultural producer. Tamara hosted the acclaimed Vox Media podcast Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave. She has written for The New York Times, Town and Country, Elle, Vox, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Car and Driver, and Vibe. She was an editor and senior reporter at The Verge. Tamara’s essays have appeared in Definition: The Art & Design of Hip Hop (Harper Collins) and Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption (Bloomsbury.) She edited the 2024 artist monograph Lee Quinones: Fifty Years of New York Graffiti Art and Beyond (Damiani.) She has appeared as a guest on ABC World News Tonight, CBS, CNBC, PBS News Hour, The History Channel, and narrated Malcolm Gladwell’s documentary feature Autonomy. Tamara is the C.E.O. and
founder of Le Car, Inc.
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