PITTA & BAIONE LLP SUPPORTS "THE FORGOTTEN FEAST" SHORT DOCUMENTARY

New York, NY, Sept. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pitta & Baione LLP is supporting The Forgotten Feast, a forthcoming short documentary from Keep Good Company and Red Sauce Studio about Little Italy in the months after September 11th. 

The 2001 Feast of San Gennaro was scheduled to begin on September 12. The booths on Mulberry Street stood unfinished, and the restaurant kitchens were stocked for eleven days of crowds when the celebration was canceled, and access below Houston Street was restricted. The food did not go to waste. Neighborhood restaurateurs and residents redirected what they had toward first responders, recovery workers and people with nowhere else to eat and continued to do so for months.

Directed by Sicilian American filmmaker Rosemarie "Ro" Sparacio and produced by Matthew Baione and Tina Baione, the film gathers firsthand accounts from the neighborhood's restaurant families, cultural stewards and longtime residents. Their recollections describe a sustained act of community leadership largely absent from the public memory of both the Feast and the city's recovery. Matthew Baione is a partner at Pitta & Baione LLP and a principal of Keep Good Company.

"I've spent ten years representing people who got sick because of where they were standing that fall," says Matthew Baione. "This neighborhood was standing right there, and what it did was cook. That never made it into the history of the day, and it should have." 

Filmed in Little Italy in July 2026, the project is being developed with the support of the Italian American Museum and Appetito magazine. The documentary arrives at a convergence the neighborhood will see only once: 2026 marks 25 years since September 11th and 100 years since the first Feast of San Gennaro.

The neighborhood is inside the exposure zone

Pitta & Baione LLP was founded in 2016 to represent responders and survivors of the September 11th attacks before the World Trade Center Health Program and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. A decade on, most of the firm's work involves people whose illnesses did not surface until years or decades after the dust, and a substantial share of them are not first responders, but the residents, office workers, students, and business owners who were simply in Lower Manhattan.

The people documented in the film are part of that population. The World Trade Center Health Program's survivor eligibility area extends north to Houston Street, covering all of Little Italy. Many of those who fed the recovery that fall were breathing the same air as the workers they were feeding. Anyone who lived, worked, attended school, or ran a business in that area between September 11, 2001 and July 31, 2002 may qualify for federally funded medical monitoring and treatment, regardless of whether they have yet become ill.

Eligibility information is available directly from the World Trade Center Health Program at cdc.gov/wtc and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund at vcf.gov.

Release and screening details for The Forgotten Feast will be announced by Keep Good Company.

ABOUT "THE FORGOTTEN FEAST"

The Forgotten Feast is a short documentary produced by Keep Good Company and Red Sauce Studio and directed by Rosemarie "Ro" Sparacio, documenting Little Italy's response after the cancellation of the 2001 Feast of San Gennaro. Media inquiries about the film should be directed to Keep Good Company.

ABOUT PITTA & BAIONE LLP

Pitta & Baione LLP represents responders and survivors of the September 11, 2001 attacks in claims before the World Trade Center Health Program and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. 

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