Respect Life (2017)

This gritty, scripted, current-day urban drama set in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. follows a young single father who is trying to live a drama-free life in the harsh rough-and-tumble housing projects of New York's most populous borough. Lead character "Melo" is played by Boom Pacino, who also writes and directs. The show is inspired by real-life events and characters who live in the projects in and around the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The title "Respect Life" is meant to represent the loose moral code of survival on the streets: To maintain a bearable existence in the chaos of the projects, there must be some form of order and decency that can best be described as "Whatever you do--respect life." Melo is no saint, but driven by his role as father to a young daughter, he recognizes his responsibility to spread some form of common sense and basic values in a neighborhood where none seem to exist. The program storylines involve family, friendships, petty crime, and shady alliances. The police, Russian mob, and drug kingpins often figure into the plot as they manipulate the less fortunate citizens who reside in the projects.