120'2018USAdirector: Jeff Zimbalist, Michael Zimbalistcinematography: Adam Booherediting: Jacob Kindbergproduction: All Rise Films
Twelve months in the world's most dangerous city.
The small city of East St. Louis, in the state of Illinois, is statistically the most dangerous city in the world. It sees more murders per one hundred inhabitants than even El Salvador. The filmmakers spent a year following the lives of several city residents, including police officers, drug dealers and ordinary neighborhood kids. They can’t escape the city's ubiquitous violence, and some of them don’t live to see the film's completion. The filmmakers observe the operation of the vicious cycle of violence and attempts to stop it. What makes things even more difficult is that East St. Louis is a city with a long history of bloody racial conflicts. The killings of two African Americans by local police led to the establishment of the Black Lives Matter movement.
