All the Difference

The Story

Inspired by Wes Moore’s New York Times bestselling book, The Other Wes Moore, Academy Award®-nominated and national Emmy-winning producer/director Tod Lending has produced and directed All The Difference, a feature-length documentary film, and media outreach project, that explores critical issues and offers insights and solutions related to African-American manhood.

Filmed over five and a half years, All The Difference weaves together the stories of two tough, yet promising young black men as they navigate their lives in broken homes and low-income, high-risk communities in Chicago. Statistics predict they will drop out of high school and succumb to life on the streets; but both graduate and go on to college in spite of all the odds. After they graduate, the film follows them for another 6 months as they both find meaningful work in community service.

The film explores the factors in their lives (education, parents and grandparents, teachers, role models, personal drive and community support) that made All The Difference in helping them be the first in their families to most likely escape poverty and secure a place in the middle class.

This national PBS film is a coproduction with POV and is part of American Graduate Intiative: Let’s Make It Happen, a national public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

PBS study guides

For our free College Bound Handbook (for students), Facilitator’s Guide (for teachers) and Family Tip Sheets (for Parents), visit our POV page.

(guides are located in the left column of the page)

Funding

The John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation