Rich

S. Torriano Berry is about to graduate from high school. His mother makes him a special breakfast in celebration, urges him to take a job and then rushes off to work as a servant for a rich woman. Berry wants to go to college. He wants to make something of himself as his father asked him to before he left to die in Viet Nam. His old friends the neighborhood -- Watts in Los Angeles -- stop him. One pulls a knife. Berry runs off. He certainly has some barriers standing in his way!

It's a rather simple and perhaps simplistic story of the pressures facing a young man trying to make his way out of the ghetto. But it's done with great sincerity, and a good deal with polish by Berry, who wrote, directed, and edited this.

Restored and made available on the UCLA's Film and TV Youtube channel, Rich makes the most of its runtime. The beautiful cinematography helps - any time you are on the street with Rich, with his friends-or-foes or his love interest, you feel as if you're right there with him. There are never any attempts to sugarcoat the struggles Rich faces or what his mother has gone through to get them both where they are. Works that are written, directed by and starring the same person can seem like vanity projects, but S. Torriano Berry plays the part with the right amount of hope and believability. Some might say the narrative of Rich bringing positive change to those in his life is unrealistic, but after so many films, especially with black leads, need to drive home the realism of a toxic environment bringing down even the most idealistic person, it's refreshing to see the inverse. The conclusion of the story arc for Rich's mother strained credulity, but I appreciated the straightforward nobility of Sussann Akers in the role. I also appreciated Rosanne Katon, who, on paper, might have been in the thankless girlfriend role (similar to her work on St. Elsewhere around the same time), but onscreen is very sweet. Her section with Rich is my favorite part of the short, bolstered by some first-rate location scouting.