SYNOPSIS
An incendiary mix of documentary, poetry, storytelling, drama, and performance, EVERY CHILD IS BORN A POET explores the life and work of PIRI THOMAS (b. 1928) the Afro-Cuban-Puerto Rican author of the classic autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets (1967). The film traces Thomas’ path from childhood to manhood in New York City’s Spanish Harlem, El Barrio, from the 1930's through the 1960’s - his parents’ immigrant experience, home life during the Great Depression, his membership in barrio youth gangs, his struggle to come to terms with his mixed-racial identity, his travels as a teen-age merchant marine, his heroin addiction, his notorious armed robbery of a Greenwich Village nightclub, his six years spent in prison, and then his emergence as a writer. Thomas’ coming-of-age story is counter-pointed with verité scenes of his on-going work of forty-five years as an educator and activist empowering marginalized and incarcerated youths. A stylized, genre-spanning production, EVERY CHILD IS BORN A POET includes rare archival footage & still photographs and provocative mixed-media artwork, as it examines Thomas’ use of creative expression as a means of confronting poverty, racism, violence and isolation. Pulsating with an original Afro-Cuban Latin Jazz score, EVERY CHILD IS BORN A POET is a riveting portrait of a life lived through struggle, self-discovery, and transformation.

Length: 58:42
Production Formats: 16mm+DV
Exhibition Formats: HDCAM or DigiBeta NTSC

FUNDERS
National Endowment for the Arts
Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowships Program
American Film Institute Independent Film & Videomaker Grant
California Council for the Humanities
San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Fund
Arthur Zankel
Pacific Pioneer Fund
Zellerbach Family Fund
Film Arts Foundation

Produced in Association with the Independent Television Service and Latino Public Broadcasting with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting