Black Picket Fence is a poignant
portrait of the bleak realities of life in the public housing projects of Brooklyn’s
East New York, one of the inner city’s most dangerous and violent neighborhoods.
Culled from nearly two years of filming, the documentary’s candid interviews,
lyric moments of grim beauty, and powerful vérité footage takes
us beyond the usual stereotypes of the rap world and into the life of Tislam Milliner,
a struggling rapper who’s ambitious to make it out of the "hood".
At the age of 25, Tiz is considered a survivor. Through intimate vignettes of
the Milliner family, Tiz’s close-knit crew, his pregnant girlfriend, his
overzealous manager, and his mentor, the legendary Kool G Rap, Tiz’s hopes
and the quiet despair of his "book of life filled with pain" gradually
emerge.
Tiz’s best friend Mel is a veteran of the "drug game" and has
spent some part of every year in prison since he was twelve. Now he’s out.
But with little hope of breaking the game’s vicious cycle of money, dark
deeds and long spells of incarceration, Mel’s life represents everything
Tiz is trying to escape.
Real escape, however, may be a goal beyond possibility. And with the birth of
Tiz’s son, it becomes unavoidably evident that Tiz’s fate and his
hopes for success involve far more than just his own happiness. The whole crew
has come to depend on it. |
 |
Year: 2002
Director:
Sergio Goes
Producer:
Keiko Takahashi
Cast:
Tislam Milliner, Kool G Rap, Mel
Run Time: 92 minutes
www.blackpicketfence.net |
