Drop Dead City (2025)
Director: Michael Rohatyn, Peter Yost Run Time: 103 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2025
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
“Drop Dead City” is the first-ever documentary about the NYC fiscal crisis of 1975, an extraordinary, overlooked episode in urban American history that saw an already crumbling city of 8 million people brought to the edge of bankruptcy and social chaos by a perfect storm of greed, incompetence, ambitious social policy and poor governance.
“At a time when the very function of government is being destroyed from within, an extraordinary historical documentary, “Drop Dead City,” puts the workings and responsibilities of government front and center”. – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
About the filmmaker:
Director/Producer Michael Rohatyn wrote the screenplay for Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Forty Shades of Blue, starring Rip Torn, and has composed numerous scores including Personal Velocity, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Maggie’s Plan, and Emmy-nominated Arthur Miller: Writer, all for Rebecca Miller. He composed the score and songs for Laurie Simmons’ semi-puppet musical The Music of Regret, starring Meryl Streep and Adam Guettel. Current projects include a film adaption of Tim Krabbé’s cycling classic, The Rider; and Nepenthe, a limited true-crime series featuring 1960’s gossip columnist Steve Brandt and hairdresser/Manson murder victim Jay Sebring.
Director/Producer Peter Yost is a multiple-Emmy nominated filmmaker who has produced/directed dozens of high-end documentary projects for leading broadcasters including the 4- part The Mysteries of Mental Illness for PBS. Past projects include Inside North Korea and The Color Of Oil (both Emmy nominated); and Solitary Confinement, which led to prison reforms in Colorado and elsewhere. He has also produced/directed 7 films for PBS/ NOVA, including Invisible Universe Revealed and Rise of the Drones, and more than a dozen films for National Geographic’s “Specials” unit. GBH recently awarded Peter the McGhee Fellowship in recognition of his exceptional promise as a mid-career filmmaker. He is currently producing/directing a film for PBS American Experience about the German-American Bund.
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