FARALLON FILMS
Award-winning films by Steven Okazaki
“Brutally graphic, BLACK TAR HEROIN makes TRAINSPOTTING look like an afterschool special—and it hits all the harder because it takes pains to introduce its subjects as human beings. We meet families, see childhood scrapbooks and come to appreciate the lives we’re seeing wasted. There’s no moralizing. Here the unfiltered facts make the point, and make it devastatingly well.”
No film, narrative or documentary, looks so deeply into the world of heroin addiction. BLACK TAR HEROIN: THE DARK END OF THE STREET is an extraordinary chronicle of the lives of five young heroin addicts - Jake, Jessica, Tracey, Oreo and Alice - as they face the perils of hardcore drug addiction — crime, prostitution, rape, incarceration, AIDS, overdoses and death.
The film, which Documentary Vine called, "probably the best made heroin documentary in history," shows the brutality and degradation of the drug life, but also depicts the addicts' raw yearning and struggle — to get clean, hold their relationships together, re-connect with their families, to get their lives back.
Filmmaker Steven Okazaki, working with Sound Recordist Jason Cohen and Associate Producer Ashley Craddock, entered San Francisco's drug underworld, recording the stories of the city's young addicts. One of the great cinema-verite films -- shot mostly with hand-held cameras, lighting with camping lanterns and flashlights — they unflinchingly captured the harsh realities as well as the human side of the addicts' desperate world.
More from Newsweek: “Anyone producing anti-drug spots for TV ought to take a good, long look at BLACK TAR HEROIN. And so should those who harbor even the slightest romantic notions about junkiedom. Steven Okazaki's crushing documentary, debuting on HBO, offers lessons for both.
Okazaki follows five young San Francisco heroin addicts over two years, from back-alley haunts to blood-spattered hovels. There's Tracey, 25, a bright kid from Ohio who deals dope. She lands in jail, emerging after six months clean and hopeful. Eight hours later she's shooting up again. Jake, 21, has 'too much of a conscience' to steal, so he works as a prostitute. As the film unfolds, he learns he's HIV-positive. Jessica, 18, starts off reformed. 'I know if I use, I'm going to die,' she says. But soon she's back at it, turning tricks and contracting HIV.”
Original music by Will Bernard with songs by Eve Bekker & Karl J. Goldring, Cat Power, Ovarian Trolley, Tanya Donelly, Mr. T Experience, Team Dresch, Varnaline, Space Needle.
Produced for HBO DOCUMENTARY FILMS in association with TAPESTRY INTERNATIONAL and IMAGINEER CO., LTD.
Development funding provided by the WALLACE ALEXANDER GERBODE FOUNDATION and FLEISCHHACKER FOUNDATION
Produced, Directed, Shot & Edited by STEVEN OKAZAKI
1999 / Documentary / 85 Minutes