Black Tar Heroin (film)

Infobox Film
name = Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street


imdb_id = 0221023
starring =
producer = Steven Okazaki
director = Steven Okazaki
music = Cat Power, Tanya Donelly, Mr. T Experience, Team Dresch, Varnaline, Space Needle, Eve Bekker & Karl Goldring
cinematography = Steven Okazaki
distributor = Farallon Films
language = English
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0221023
|

"Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street" is a 1999 documentary directed by Steven Okazaki. Filmed from 1995 to 1998 in the Tenderloin, San Francisco, California, the documentary offers the viewer a sobering dose of reality about the lives of black tar heroin addicts.

Overview

The film follows a simple structure, and shows the drug-related degradation of five youths (Jake, Tracey, Jessica, Alice, and Oreo) during the course of three years. The film is brutal in the depiction of drug-related crimes and diseases: prostitution, male prostitution, AIDS, and lethal overdoses. The director also put a lot of emphasis on the moral sides pertaining to the junkie lifestyle: from the question of robbing other people for money to the degradation of family relations and loss of friends, a wide scale of highly unconventional problems are exposed.

Release

* The film was produced by HBO and was frequently shown in 1999 on the channel, as part of their "America Undercover" series, becoming one of its top-rated documentaries.
* The documentary received a theatrical release on the 17th of March, 2000 at San Francisco's Roxie Theatre, and is still available on DVD.

External links

* [http://farfilm.com/web/title_bth.htm Official site for the film]
* [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sfmetro/04.12.99/okazaki-9913.html Interview with director Steven Okazaki about the film]
* [http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/28/blacktarheroin.html Article on Bright Lights Film Journal]
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