Based on Julian Rubinstein's New York Times Editor's Choice pick, The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood (FSG, 2021), THE HOLLY highlights anti-gang activist Terrance Roberts. When the film starts, Roberts-whose anti-gang work won him grants and awards-faces life in prison. In an incident that shocked the city of Denver, Roberts shot someone at his own peace rally. The shooting happened in the so-called "Holly," a neighborhood that was once at the center of Denver's civil rights movement, and later became Roberts' turf when he was a gang member. The high-profile case becomes an unexpected window into the machinations of the gang war.