In partnership with Show of Force, VPM will present the documentary “Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope” to a national public television audience on October 26. The following afternoon, on October 27 at 4:00 p.m., VPM will sponsor a Marquee Talk at the Tom Tom Foundation’s Cities Rising Summit with Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn to discuss the documentary. The Cities Rising Summit is a virtual event series exploring critical issues surfaced by the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 movement for racial justice.
Distraught over the loss of too many childhood classmates, “Tightrope” follows Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Kristof and WuDunn as they explore the causes and the costs of opioid addiction, poverty and incarceration plaguing America, from the inner city to small towns like Kristof’s hometown of Yamhill, Ore. While pockets of empathy and aid exist, are they enough to rescue the thousands of Americans in despair, for whom the American dream of self-reliance is impossibly out of reach?
In this boots-on-the-ground, intensely personal journey across the country, Kristof and WuDunn find that inequality is killing millions of Americans every year. These “deaths of despair” prompt the crucial question – how do we recover as a country and lift ourselves from systemic poverty and the brutal policies that have persisted for decades in one of the richest countries on earth? As we head into one of the most consequential elections in our history, this searing and personal story reveals that despite this grim reality, human kindness and potential, when harnessed, can change the future.
Join VPM and the Tom Tom Foundation at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27, 2020 for a free, virtual conversation with Kristof and WuDunn moderated by Times Bridge CEO Rishi Jaitly.
VPM is a sponsor of the Tom Tom Foundation’s Cities Rising Summit.