17 BLOCKS

Washington D.C., 1999. Nine-year-old Emmanuel “Mannie” Sanford receives a video camera and starts filming his surroundings: community basketball games, visits to his sickly grandfather, playful struggles with older siblings, escapades of his drugged mother. Captured by the innocent eyes of a child, who is as cheerful as he is crafty, these everyday images reveal the complexity of a family living within a neglected neighbourhood just 17 blocks from the United States Capitol.