USA,
1999, 90 min
Shown in 2000
CREDITS
- dir
-
Tod S. Lending
- prod
-
Tod S. Lending, Daniel Alpert
- scr
-
Tod S. Lending
- cam
-
Slawomir Grunberg, Sid Lubitsch
- editor
-
Daniel Alpert
- source
-
Nomadic Pictures, 4516 N. Francisco, Chicago, IL 60625. FAX: 773-478-9574. EMAIL: tod@nomadicpix.com
- gga award
-
Certificate of Merit, Society & Culture—US
-
COMMENTS
Tod S. Lending, Nickole and Alaissa Collins in person.
OTHER
In the process of creating an earlier documentary, director Tod S. Lending went in search of positive young role models living in urban poverty but working to escape their debilitating surroundings. He found freshman honor student Terrell Collins. But merely two hours after Lending interviewed Collin’s grandmother—before even meeting Terrell—the teenager was shot dead just two blocks from his home. This tragic event becomes the launching point for the powerful story of three generations of Collins women who turn Terrell’s memory from a source of overwhelming grief into one of divine inspiration. Living in Chicago’s infamously dangerous and grim Henry Horner housing projects, the women subsist on welfare and battle daily with the ravages of violence and drug addiction. Yet in this remarkable family saga, narrated by Terrell’s young cousin Nickole, the cycle of despair is finally broken as one family manages to transcend the severe economic, social and psychological barriers that have long defined their existence. An emotional and rigorous six-year journey, Legacy is born of a unique intimacy that demonstrates a sense of trust and collaboration between filmmaker and subjects—a style that is at once discreet and involved and always compelling.
—Joanne Parsont
FACTOID #123
San Francisco native Mervyn LeRoy, director of the Hollywood classics Little Caesar and Goldiggers of 1933, was honored with the Festival’s first tribute October 22, 1965.
