"If Killer of Sheep were an Italian film from 1953, we would have every scene memorized." — MICHAEL TOLKIN, SCREENWRITER
"Killer of Sheep caught the lives of the children with a fidelity to how kids really do fight, play, and cry — and how they can sometimes be cruel simply because they're so scared." — ROGER EBERT
"What the Italian neorealists accomplished in the years after World War II... Burnett— a one-man African-American New Wave—achieved with [Killer of Sheep]: he gave a culture, a people, a nation new images of themselves." — NELSON KIM, SENSES OF CINEMA
Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.
Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter. The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life — sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor. Killer of Sheep is definitely a must see!
