Tod Lending - Nomadic Pictures, Inc.

In the hallway bathroom of a decaying tenement on the west side of Chicago, Laurie and Marilynn escape the cold of winter and fix (shoot heroin) with two ten dollar bags of tar (Mexican heroin). The dilapidated building is called a "shooting gallery" and is a place where many heroin addicts in the neighborhood go to fix. Laurie is the youngest of her group, 28 years old, and has been addicted to heroin the shortest period of time -- 8 years. She has two children that her mother, a former heroin addict, looks after. Marilynn is 41 and has been using for 20 years. Her family has abandoned her as a result of her habit. Laurie and Marilynn both support their habits through prostitution and stealing. They have said that it is the heroin addiction that ties them together -- that it is the heroin that completely controls their lives.

Produced, directed and written by Tod Lending, The Shooting Gallery is a feature-length documentary, currently in production, that is designed to deepen our knowledge of the complex issues of heroin addiction by studying the lives of Laurie, Marilynn and four of their associates over several years. Also included in the study is an outreach worker, a former addict himself, who works with these drug users and their community. Through an in-depth portrait of these lives this film will explore many of the key issues of heroin addiction, including: what leads to heroin addiction; how users support their addiction; how heroin addiction affects relationships with family and friends; how heroin addiction affects the psychological and physical health of the user; and what resources are available to users for helping them to end their addiction.

William Burroughs said: "I have learned the junk equation. Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life." It will take time to understand this way of life. Thus, for the next year, The Shooting Gallery will continue following Laurie, Marilynn and their associates, recording their thoughts, their struggles and their dreams. This story will reveal where they came from and who they were before their addiction, how they fell into it, how they survive from day to day -- and why some will escape from it, while others will not.