Family Portrait
Directed by Patricia Riggen
In 1968 Gordon Parks wrote an article for Life Magazine on race and poverty in the United States. For his story, Parks photographed the Fontenelle family, a disenfranchised African American family of twelve living in extreme poverty in a small Harlem apartment. The American public's response to the Life photo essay was so great that Parks worked with the magazine to purchase the family a home on Long Island. In Patricia Riggen's moving and insightful documentary, Richard and Diana, the only surviving members of the family, render their own family portrait as they recount the challenges the family faced. Through interviews with Richard Fontanelle, Diana Nash and Gordon Parks, we meet two survivors in a family that has struggled confronting the social obstacles of racism, poverty, addiction, and AIDS, problems that have ravaged Black communities nation-wide.
A disenfranchised African-American family living in extreme poverty is put in the spotlight after their photo appears in an article for Life Magazine. Two surviving members of the family recount the challenges their family faced.
Cast: