ABOUT FILM

Whatever Happened to Tyrell Biggs?  provides a fascinating look at a life drawn straight from Shakespearean tragedy – the fascinating story of one man’s fall from worldwide recognition and acclaim into the depths of addiction and despair. In living in that territory in between, Biggs confronts, though on a grander scale, the struggle that lives within all of us.

 

There is a film noir quality about this documentary that is needed to capture the grit of boxing, as well as the sport’s unsavory elements with which even the most skilled and dedicated young athletes may find themselves confronted.  Tyrell Biggs lives where each of us does, in the space between stellar achievement and catastrophic failure.  He inspires all of us through his stoic demeanor.  

 

He has every reason to be bitter – against managers who were motivated primarily by dollars, against friends who overlooked the problems they saw, against a system that drives its competitors to undertake too much too fast.  It would be unfair to cast as an individual failure what may well have been a systemic failure, which is why Tyrell’s story needs to be told against the larger backdrop of the business of boxing. Nevertheless, Tyrell’s story remains undeniably a human tragedy – one whose consequences have reshaped and redefined the life of a single human being.

 

We plan on completing the film in 2014 which marks the 30th anniversary of the 1984 Olympics as well as the 30th anniversary of Tyrell Biggs’ sobriety.