Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

Director Sam Fleischner began filming “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors” in Rockaway on October 6. Production of the film wrapped up a few weeks later, just as Hurricane Sandy hit Atlantic shores.

By the time the storm peaked, most of the film’s cast and crew had fled the peninsula. But Fleischner stayed, along with a few crewmembers and their film equipment. As a result, Fleischner captured on camera the most destructive New York hurricane in recent history. He incorporated the storm and its aftermath into his film’s ending, and created a portrait of the Rockaways post-Sandy.

The film “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 20, only a few days after finishing post-production. The film focuses on Ricky, an autistic teenager from the Rockaways who has a difficult family and escapes alone into the New York City subway. As Hurricane Sandy makes its way up the coast, his mother’s frantic search efforts escalate, until the storm finally hits the city.

The film portrays people in visuals that zoom in on a time capsule of life, reflecting the everyday humanity in all of us. Fleischner’s choice of close-ups via a handheld camera was his way of changing the viewer’s perspective, as well as what he calls “a responsibility for looking out and paying attention to others.”

His film captured images of a neighborhood drastically changed. If one goes to the Rockaways today, many of the buildings shot in Fleischner’s film will no longer be there. While the Queens peninsula is still recovering, it is slowly returning to normal.

“Things are looking better in Rockaway but the main task is figuring out how to hold the sand and hold back the water,” Fleischner said.

With the aftermath of the hurricane also came a renewal of a sense of community. Fleischner, a resident of Rockaway, spent the weeks after the storm volunteering in recovery efforts in the area before finishing his movie. But some things remain broken. In the original ending of “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors,” Sanchez, as Ricky, was supposed to ride the A train into the Rockaways over the Cross Bay Bridge, as the sun rises over the water. After the hurricane, Fleischner changed the ending to incorporate images of the post-Sandy Rockaway. Though done for aesthetic reasons in order to drive the plot, logistics were still involved. The subway was shut down so shooting on the A train was not an option. To this day, A train service to Rockaway has not been restored. Until it is, “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors” serves as a fitting reminder to the world of the Rockaways: what was there, what is still there and what is yet to come.