THE ALTERNATIVE SCREEN - BOOM: THE SOUND OF EVICTION

For its first feature-length effort, the San Francisco-based Whispered Media collective followed several Latino and black families, elderly folks, struggling artists and activists during the recent dot-com boom, when eviction rates tripled in the city's Mission District, and mom-and-pop bodegas were suddenly reincarnated as pricey oxygen bars.

This is a meat-and-potatoes, activist-made video documentary: We see dot-commers fresh out of college in a remodeled Victorian, scarcely taking the time to think about its former residents, a Salvadoran family now sleeping under a freeway. We see the faces of the displaced in dangerously crowded apartments, activists yelling, "Don't evict!" and the landlords for whom the translation is "Don't make money!" And we're provided historical perspective by archival footage of earlier populist struggles in the 1930s and the 19th-century gold-rush era.

Today, in the wake of the bust, overpriced buildings still lie empty and out of reach for families in need of homes. But while Boom laments what's been lost, it also manages a celebratory tone as it shows us the dancing in the streets before and after a city election that helped tip the balance of power from real estate speculators back to the people.

(Alternative Screen at the Egyptian; Thurs., March 14, 7:30 p.m. 323-466-3456)

-John Dentino