Based on writer Maya Angelou's eloquent reminiscences of her days as a gifted youngster growing up in the South during the Depression years where she and her older brother were raised by their grandmother after the divorce of their parents.

Black and White is the story of Lisa, a young Soviet emigre studying medicine in Manhattan, Roy, an African American building superintendent on New York's Lower East Side, and the bond that they form from living on the edges of Manhattan. Filled with an assortment of fringe artists, disenfranchised immigrants, diamond dealers and sexual surrogates, the film is ultimately about breaking down barriers between people.