17 Blocks
17 Blocks is a dramatic family saga of an African-American family living in Washington D.C. Emmanuel Sanford-Durant was nine years old in 1999 when he met Davy Rothbart, who began to follow and film the family in the US capital’s most dangerous neighborhood. Soon Emmanuel and his siblings also started filming: from intimate family moments to street violence, their honest and blunt recordings document two decades of their lives. After an unexpected tragedy, the family’s dreams and plans fall to pieces. The disaster illuminates deeply-rooted systemic problems, but the recordings, done over several years, give it new meaning.
Davy Rothbart is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, bestselling author and journalist, frequent contributor to public radio's "This American Life", and the creator of Found Magazine. Rothbart previously directed two documentaries about the activist band Rise Against. A separate short film featuring Rise Against's song "Make It Stop" was created for Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project and later won an MTV Music Video Award.