After tackling war with great precision in Why We Fight, director Eugene Jarecki takes a look at a battle of a very different kind with The House I Live In. The documentary, which premiered at Sundance to great praise takes an expansive look at America’s War on Drugs.
If last year’s stellar Steve James doc The Interrupters provided a micro look, mostly pertaining to violence, this one gives the macro picture, as Jarecki goes on a twenty-state journey to dive into the mechanics behind this $1 trillion fight the past 40 years, resulting in over 45 million jailed. Check out the captivating trailer below.
Synopsis:
As America remains embroiled in conflict overseas, a less visible war is taking place at home, costing countless lives, destroying families, and inflicting untold damage on future generations of Americans. Over the last forty years, the War on Drugs has cost $1 trillion, accounted for more than 45 million arrests, made America the world’s largest jailer, and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Yet for all that, drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever before. Filmed in more than twenty states, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN captures heart-wrenching stories from individuals at all levels of America’s War on Drugs. From the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge, the film offers a penetrating look inside America’s longest war, offering a definitive portrait and revealing its profound human rights implications.
The House I Live In hits theaters on October 5th, 2012.