dir. Gerardo Herrero, 2005, Spain, 110 min. Your son is a heroine addict. What’s a mother to do? For one Spanish woman in the drug-choked Galicia of the 1980s, the answer is simple: attack the dealers head-on. Based on real-life events, the film offers a view of the drug culture in a small town while telling the story of a family ripped apart by their son’s drug addiction and a mothers political activism. Pilar, a middle class wife and mother becomes the leader of a group of women fighting against the establishment and the drug barons. Determined to clean up the streets through a grassroots effort, Pilar rallies parents and the local press against some of the cities most visible and influential drug figures. A passionate glimpse into the domestic, social and political effects of “smack,” Heroína is an emotional take on an all too common family secret and the power of leadership by a mother who decided to fight back. Screening at 10th International Latino Film Festival – San Francisco Bay Area on 11/16/2006 @ 7:45 PM – @ Dominican University of California (San Rafael)

Black Tar Heroin is a 1999 documentary directed by Steven Okazaki. Filmed from 1995 to 1998 in the Tenderloin, San Francisco, California, the documentary offers the viewer a sobering dose of reality about the lives of black tar heroin addicts. The film follows a simple structure, and shows the drug-related degradation of five youths (Jake, Tracey, Jessica, Alice, and Oreo) during the course of three years. The film is brutal in the depiction of drug-related crimes and diseases: prostitution, male prostitution, AIDS, and lethal overdoses. The director also put a lot of emphasis on the moral sides pertaining to the junkie lifestyle: from the question of robbing other people for money to the degradation of family relations and loss of friends, a wide scale of highly unconventional problems are exposed.