Nicholle La Vann doesn't seem like the kind of person to be crusading against violence in Rochester.

She has a soft, open face and a disarming smile that readily transforms into laughter. She has five kids, including a newborn, and she's relatively new to Rochester.

But when she talks about Homicidez, her latest documentary, her voice takes on an edge, and her commitment to changing the culture of violence becomes clear.

La Vann came to Rochester "for love," after completing a master's degree at the City University of New York and two documentary films. For a filmmaker, it wasn't the easiest move.

"I was ranting to my fiancé, 'There's nothing for me to do in Rochester. I'll never make another film.'"

One night they were watching a news report on murders in Rochester. She turned to her fiancé and said, "Somebody's got to do something." He said, "Why don't you?"

"But I felt there were plenty of other people out there who could do something," La Vann says. The murder of Latasha Shaw changed her mind.

Shaw was killed in broad daylight, allegedly by a group of mostly young women and teenage girls.

"That murder set me off. ... It put a spark in my heart," La Vann says, her voice beginning to break.

La Vann decided to film families of murder victims, to show how murder devastates them. Armed with her camera, a small amount of money and some volunteers, she talked with five families plus city officials and advocates.

"These families who have been affected by violence — they need closure," she says. "Part of my job was to listen to what they have to say, to let them grieve."

Yet in frighteningly personal ways, she also discovered how close to home violence can be.

"There's another side that's not seen in the documentary," she explains, pausing. "My two sons were arrested on gun charges." (The cases are pending.) "I could've been one of those mothers saying, 'I'm sorry for what my kids did.'"

La Vann is still struggling with the circumstances.

"My kids didn't come from a bad home ... no drugs, no promiscuity." But, as any parent of grown children must grapple with, "They made their own decisions — they're grown. ..." She stops and shakes her head.

In late August, there was a homicide on La Vann's street.

"This made me feel, again, it was right to do the documentary," says La Vann, who lives in southwest Rochester.

"It emphasized how much it's needed."

La Vann is fundraising to finish the film, but is looking for a location to show the 30 minutes of the documentary that is finished thus far.

"This is not a black, white or Latino issue," she says.

"This a human issue. It took years for this problem to evolve; it's going to take years for it to dissolve. Let's not depend on the city and government to help us. Let's depend on ourselves."

Joseph Sorrentino is a writer and photographer in Rochester.