My little runaway

Legend has it that the French New Wave—Truffaut, Chabrol et al.—was actually inspired by a super-low-budget, breathtakingly slow and virtually plotless black-and-white film that was shot on location in Coney Island. The 1953 award-winning movie Little Fugitive tells the tale of two scrappy Brooklyn kids—seven-year-old Joey and his big brother, Lenny. When Joey is tricked into thinking he's killed his sib, he runs away to Coney.

Half a century later, award-winning documentary filmmaker Joanna Lipper is paying tribute to Little Fugitive with a 21st-century remake—a decidedly indie production in the spirit of the original, which co-director Morris Engel shot on a handheld 35mm camera. (Engel is a consultant on the new film, which is being co-produced by Mary Engel, daughter of Morris and his Fugitive co-director, the late Ruth Orkin.) Through open casting calls, Lipper sought out "real kids" who she felt could bring life experience to the roles.

Lipper's Fugitive stars three local children: Tyler Chazz Rivera, age eight, in the role of Joey—who, the first-time actor explains, is "a little tough and a little scared at the same time"; Nicholas Saldago, twelve, as the angry Lenny; and Tiye Kirtley, nine, as a new character, Destiny—a foster-child neighbor who helps Lenny find Joey. The kids got to know one another and their characters while knocking around the city with Lipper on weekends, before spending July filming in and around Coney Island.

"You rarely see films that are 95 percent carried by children," Lipper says of her decision to tackle the remake. "Little Fugitive offered a rare opportunity to do what I love most, which is working with kids." The filmmaker, whose projects have dealt with teen motherhood (Growing Up Fast, 1999) and the role that imagination plays in kids' psychic resilience (Inside Out: Portraits of Children, 1996), fell for Fugitive's marriage of gritty realism with everyday magic.

Lipper's Little Fugitive updates the urban naturalism of the original: The boys' father is in jail (some scenes take place during prison visiting hours); their mother works in a nursing home and is rarely available to them. "With welfare reforms, many single mothers are working longer hours," Lipper says, "so kids create their own communities." The film's children are drawn to spots like Coney Island that have the magical quality their imaginations thrive on. They're transfixed by the elderly model makers who race miniatures at Floyd Bennett Field; they befriend a man who repairs carousels and help him paint mermaids; and Joey—who spends much of his time on the lam hanging out with a magician—is intent on finding a place in Coney Island called Lilliputia, a tiny, once-upon-a-time city within a city designed for dwarves. Lilliputia, along with other pieces of neighborhood history, will come alive in the film through old footage and the tales told by old-timers.

"Kids are interested in the places where they live," Lipper points out, "and New York City has so many rich stories."—Barbara Aria