The New York Daily News |

A NEW short film aimed at curbing gun violence centers on the enduring sorrow of a Brooklyn mother five years after her son was gunned down on a Crown Heights streetcorner. In the brief but powerful video, Robin Lyde recalls seeing her son Benny, 21, sprawled on the sidewalk near her house. “So close to home, but not home,” she says in the film, “Benny Lyde: A Role Model
Dies Young.” “I started praying.”

Anti-violence advocates are hoping the documentary, and others like it to be screened at Launch Pad in Crown Heights Thursday, will offer a fresh way to bolster efforts to stamp out gun violence in the city. “When they see a family in pain, I hope
people will want to take a stand,” Robin Lyde, 48, said. Her son’s killer, Cody Nelson, received a five-to-10-year prison sentence in August. “It’s my son today. It may be their brother or sister or family member tomorrow.”

Clinton Hill-raised Hemamset Angaza, 21, created the Benny Lyde video this spring for Beyond Bullets, an anti-violence campaign by media arts group Downtown Community Television.

“This guy was very close to my age, and his parents’ grief was very real,” Angaza said. “I could see myself in the same position
— my parents mourning me.” Beyond Bullets recruited Angaza and five other young documentary filmmakers to make a series of short anti-violence videos this spring that it has been screening at schools and community centers.

The Manhattan-based group has Brooklyn beginnings, inspired by the 2004 film “Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story,” which
was created by two Brooklyn teens in a DCTV film training program. Thursday’s screening of mainly youth-produced videos made through programs like Beyond Bullets and Reel Works Teen Filmmaking is the work of the Kings County Cinema Society and anti-violence groups that include the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center.

In Brooklyn’s 77th Precinct, which covers northern Crown Heights, 66 people have been shot so far this year, said the center’s
director, Amy Ellenbogen. Through its anti-violence program, SOS Crown Heights, the center plans to launch a media campaign of its own, soliciting young artists to come up with posters, radio and and video spots and public service announcements
with an anti-gun message for its 2011 Save Our Streets Multimedia Contest.

“We want to transform the culture from one that’s tolerant of violence to one that’s intolerant,” Ellenbogen said. “Media and the
arts are powerful tools in our efforts.” The screening and talk will be held Thursday, beginning at 7 p.m. at Launch Pad, 721 Franklin Ave.