Why is Explorers important? Why now? Why us?

We all begin our lives with a sense of wonder.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know the limits of the world. I didn’t know how the world worked. I pushed as many boundaries as I could. I wanted to know what was in every drawer and what was behind every closed door. But, for every door I couldn’t open, I would imagine what was on the other side. There were infinite possibilities. There was a great sense of potential.

As I got older, I started to understand the limits of the world.. gravity, the fact that there are just clothes in the closet and not monsters, the fact that the refrigerator door is not a portal to another dimension, but a reminder that I should cook more. I learned that some places are dangerous and can cause you harm, therefore you should avoid them.

I want to go back to a time where behind a closed door is a world only limited by my imagination.

I’ve always been attracted to the idea of secret worlds just outside our reach. Our ordinary world is just that, ordinary. But if we are curious enough, there are worlds hidden in plain sight that that just require a little curiosity and some effort to enter.

The worlds can come in the form of a vivid child’s imagination: monsters under the bed, a refrigerator door becoming a portal to an alternate universe at night. But in many cases, there are real worlds that we willfully overlook, and in many cases are absolutely fantastic.

A couple years ago, the hacker group Anonymous, hacked into the CIA. It was major news. A few months later, the FBI announced that they had arrested the key hacker from Anonymous. They arrested an unnamed, black, 13 year old boy, living in the housing projects of Alphabet City in Manhattan. His mother never had any idea. In fact, no one around him had any idea. A 13 year old black kid from the projects in NYC, a major hacker!? That’s almost the exact opposite type of person I would have expected! But, of course. It makes absolute sense. This marginalized kid, with curiosity, a cheap laptop, and free public wifi, was able to gain entry into a secret world hidden in plain sight. In the normal world, this smart kid was marginalized, unnoticed, and insignificant. But, in the secret world of hacking, he had great impressive power, he was solving intellectually interesting problems – he had agency in this world. He mattered.

I wanted to know more about this kid.

I moved to New York almost 14 years ago. New York is the perfect blend of a new city and an old one. It is changing all the time. If you aren’t lazy, you can discover an interesting part of New York every single day. And if you don’t, you may regret it, because beautiful old places are being destroyed regularly. However, I regret that as I’ve gotten older, I explore less. I wonder less. I imagine less.

In my effort to imagine the life of this kid, I spent a lot of time walking around the projects in Alphabet City and the area between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. When I first moved here, I actively avoided it. It was dangerous – or at least that’s what I had been told, and unfortunately, I believed it. There are parts of this area that seem yet untouched by the progress of new New York City. There are hundred year old tenement buildings in between the projects and beautiful community-kept parks. To my surprise and embarrassment, I discovered a beautiful skate park directly underneath the Manhattan Bridge. At any given time, there are 30 kids skating there. 70% young black kids. Some white kids. A few older guys, who I assume used to be professional skaters the way the younger kids silently nod to them with respect. They are all excellent skaters. Hidden under a massive stone bridge, sandwiched in-between projects, with the backdrop of the east river and the shoreline of Brooklyn – it’s an absolutely beautiful place, and willfully ignored by the rest of New York.

I’ve been to the skate park many times since I’d found it. Many of the kids live in the neighborhood and come to the skate park to pass the time after school. I wondered what their lives are like. Could any of these kids have been the Anonymous hacker? Could one of these kids spend most of their time exploring a fantastic world literally right underneath our feet? Absolutely.

Our movie, Explorers, is the story of a group of kids who get stuck in the underground tunnels of New York. In their effort to find a way back aboveground, they discover a lost secret of New York.

Ryan, a black, 13 year old kid, spends most of his time sneaking into the subway tunnels, exploring, and collecting forgotten relics. Ryan is enchanted by these old relics because they represent the lives of New York that time has forgotten. Every item has a story. Almost every item that he finds was once important to someone. Once important and significant – today, no longer. The tunnels are an archaic twisted web, many of which have not been in use for many decades. As New York is constantly under development – recycling its old buildings to make way for bigger ones, older tunnels are destroyed. Ryan is horrified that these undiscovered treasures are being erased, and worse, no one cares about them in the first place. Ryan spends his free time at lunch, and after school struggling to collect items just before they are destroyed. Although this is a daunting task, Ryan is filled with hope and wonder every time he enters because of what he might find.

Ryan is contrasted by his older brother. Jordan, 17, who although is just 4 years older than Ryan, very much looks like an adult, and it on the precipice of adulthood. Jordan’s childhood is ending and he is forced to make some adult decisions about his future. Jordan once had aspirations of becoming a pro skater, like a few of his friends, but due to an injury, that future is impossible. Jordan has a job working as a doorman in a nearby luxury building. This isn’t the future Jordan wanted. The world has told him that his dreams don’t matter and he is growing increasingly cynical.

Do you want to know more? What do you think of this introduction? I would love your feedback!