For 36 years documentarian Jon Alpert followed three friends—Rob Steffey, Freddie Rodriguez, and Deliris Vasquez—through a Newark underground of drugs and poverty.
We see them getting into trouble with the law, undergoing prison and rehab and reintegrating into society.
Alpert, a recipient of Doc NYC’s Lifetime Achievement Award, gained remarkable access to a closed-off world.
Filming under a variety of conditions and on several formats, he gives a first-person account of our failed war on drugs.
It is an unbearably sad look at lives falling apart.
Alpert also captures moments of success, of uplift, of reconciliation and forgiveness.
The film […]The post “Life and Filmmaking are Both a Search for Cutaways”: Jon Alpert on Life of Crime 1984-2020 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
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