Before It Was Cool: The Brooklyn Beat From Lauterbach’s

Before It Was Cool is a documentary film followed by a Q&A. Filmmakers Michael West and Lia Komakhidze tell the story of Lauterbach's, an unassuming Brooklyn dive bar of the early 1980s that became the birthplace of a musical movement known as "The Brooklyn Beat." Through intimate interviews, archival footage and animation, the film uncovers this overlooked chapter of New York music history and a community of punk, indie and alternative musicians who turned competition into collaboration. When the bar suddenly closed its community scattered, but the film celebrates this pre-gentrification Brooklyn and its enduring influence.