This film tells the story of a woman, Brenda, who is on a mission to disrupt the cycle of neglect, violence, and exploitation endured by girls and women in inner-city Chicago. On any given day, she’s performing interventions with at-risk teenagers, female prisoners, and prostitutes on street corners. She uses unconditional love, non-judgmental support, practical help—whatever it takes for them to change their own lives. But the most powerful weapon in Brenda’s healing arsenal is the raw honesty she can offer because she’s been where they are. For 25 years, she survived as a drug-addicted prostitute, even recruiting innocents into the “lifestyle” and abandoning her own children.

Using unobtrusive verité camera work that inhabits Brenda's miraculous perspective, master director Longinotto follows intimate stories along Brenda’s path. Child molestation, physical abuse, poverty, and silence are among the common denominators of their dire situations. Like a shining star in the darkness, Brenda appears, doing a dance and upending the paradigm: "Hold the rest of the world accountable for what’s been done to you ... It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault."

Longinotto is a British documentary filmmaker, well known for making films that highlight the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination. Longinotto studied camera and directing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England. Longinotto is an observational filmmaker. Observational cinema, also known as direct cinema, free cinema or cinema verite, usually excludes certain documentary techniques such as advanced planning, scripting, staging, narration, lighting, reenactment and interviewing. Longinotto’s unobtrusiveness, which is an important part of observational documentary, gives the women on camera a certain voice and presence that may not have emerged with another documentary genre. She has received a number of awards for her films over the years, including a BAFTA for her documentary Pink Saris.

As the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Dreamcatcher Foundation, Myers-Powell has touched the hearts of many individuals and communities by delivering a high energy message which speaks of her life as a survivor of abuse, drugs and prostitution. Brenda tells people how to break the chains of oppression and live up to their greatness.

Born the only child in one of the poorest ghettos of Chicago, Brenda always struggled to find herself and where she belonged. Facing adversity with the death of her mother when she was only an infant, Brenda grew up to experience physical, mental and sexual abuse at the hands of trusted family members. At the age 14 Brenda escaped an abusive home life only to fall into the violent world of prostitution.  Brenda was also a researcher with Jody Rapheal of DePaul University studying the trafficking of young girls in the city of Chicago and the metropolitan area.

Brenda’s experience as a runaway teenager where she survived against all odds, makes her an advocate and an expert for young girls.  She not only understands what they’re going through, she has been there.  Brenda’s style of keeping it real with teenage girls and her passion to help other young women avoid the trauma she experienced in her 25 years as a teenage and adult prostitute enables her to successfully mentor at-risk youth. Brenda has the insight and depth to help others change their lives and live their dreams. She practices what she preaches and helps other obtain and reach new levels of achievement. She has a captivating personality and approach that touches the heart of everyone she is involved with. She makes you laugh and cry with her touching personal stories and does it with eagerness, integrity and enthusiasm.