About The Event: A free dinner will be served at 7pm followed by a guest speaker at 7:30pm. At 8:15pm, the film "High On Crack Street" will be shown.
About The Movie: While Lowell is generally known for its central role in the Industrial Revolution as the first planned textile town in the United States, the city had fallen on hard times since the mills left the city in the early 1920's. Wang Laboratories, a major employer in Lowell in the prosperous 1980's, declared bankruptcy and virtually went out of business in the early 1990's. The Lowell of 1995 had a large percentage of the population unemployed or underemployed, in poverty, and unaffacted by positive things in the city like the Lowell National Historical Park and The Lowell Folk Festival. Much of the film takes place in a lower-class section of the city's (Lower) Highlands neighborhood.
The documentary frames the lives of three addicts against the background; particularly their hopeless situations, while exploring them as human beings. The film reveals the lives behind addiction: their aspirations, why they do drugs and why they don't quit, etc. It interviews their families, friends and members of the community, discussing how drugs have destroyed the lives of the addicts. Richard Farrell, one of the directors, writers and producers, is a native Lowellian and a former addict, allowing the crew deep access to the city's drug scene.
To learn more about other Tewksbury Reads events and to register, click here: http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/events.cfm?curOrg=TEWKS&curkey1=tewksbury%20reads.
