The Trade

Director: Matthew Heineman
Screenwriters: Pagan Harleman, Matthew Heineman

Institute History

  • 2018 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Transcending headlines to create a nuanced perspective of the heroin epidemic, this five-part Showtime docuseries deftly illuminates the humanity within this modern American crisis. Addicts and their families struggle in Atlanta, drug lords and poppy-seed farmers toil in Mexico, and narcotics units and dealers clash in Columbus. Intimate moments lay bare the physical and emotional grip of dependency, the complicit pain of enabling addiction, the complex roles of law enforcement, and the seemingly unbreakable cycle of supply and demand.

Director Matthew Heineman (City of Ghosts) returns to the Sundance Film Festival with this powerful, observational take on opioid addiction and the drug trade. Characters are presented without judgment in a riveting, interwoven narrative with superlative access to moments of heartbreak and personal truths. When one mother sobs, “I’m so tired of this; I don’t understand why,” she could be speaking for any person along this pervasive chain.

The Festival is proud to present the first two episodes of this unnerving series, which artfully conveys the scope and gravity of a national epidemic.

— D.C.

Screening Details

Credits

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