Blu-ray, DVD Release: Streetwise / Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Available now
Price: DVD $22.99, Blu-ray $27.99
Studio: Criterion


In 1983, director Martin Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall set out to tell the stories of homeless and runaway teenagers living on the margins in Seattle.

Streetwise follows an unforgettable group of kids who survive by hustling, panhandling, and dumpster diving. Its most haunting and enduring figure is iron-willed fourteen-year-old Erin Blackwell, a.k.a. Tiny; the project’s follow-up, Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwellcompleted thirty years later, draws on the filmmakers’ long relationship with their subject, now a mother of ten. Blackwell reflects with Mark on the journey they’ve experienced together, from Blackwell’s battles with addiction to her regrets to her dreams for her children, even as she sees them repeat her own struggles.

Taken together, the two films create a devastatingly frank, empathetic portrait of lost youth growing up far too soon in a world that has failed them, and of a family trying to break free of the cycle of trauma—as well as a summation of the life’s work of Mark, an irreplaceable artistic voice.

Criterion’s director-approved special features for the discs include the following:

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer of Streetwise, supervised by director Martin Bell
  • New audio commentary featuring Bell
  • New interview with Bell about photographer Mary Ellen Mark
  • New interview with Streetwise editor Nancy Baker
  • Four short films by Bell
  • Trailers
  • And more

Buy or Rent Streetwise / Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.