CONBODY VS EVERYBODY

PART 1 (100 min)
PART 2 (116 min)
PART 3 (113 min)

Of the 650,000 prisoners released from prison in the US each year, more than three-quarters end up back behind bars within five years. Former drug dealer Coss is determined to break this cycle. After serving a long prison sentence, he returns to his family on New York’s Lower East Side in 2014, determined to build a legitimate life for himself. Together with other former prisoners, he opens a gym in his old neighbourhood, which is gentrifying at a rapid pace. If someone like him can overcome this extreme challenge, can the other ex-convicts succeed too?
Filmmaker Debra Granik has observed Coss’s efforts over eight years. Through her camera, we witness the friction and hurdles, the setbacks and successes, and we experience the enormous stress of succeeding against all odds in a racist environment that knows no leniency. Like a coming-of-age novel – Granik explicitly references the social-realist literature of Charles Dickens – the film is divided into chapters. The long-form structure allows her to follow multiple narrative threads and focus on a variety of protagonists. This creates a growing pull that soon makes us lose track of time, lament every failure and cheer every small victory.