After starting in festivals in Europe and the US, Our School finally had its premiere in Romania – a homecoming of sorts for the film and an event that we have been anticipating for almost six years.

We shot in a small town in Transylvania, a very real place in Northern Romania. Our intention was to begin to understand, and hopefully improve, race relations between majority Romanians and the Roma ethnic minority by showing under a magnifying glass the story of three spirited Roma children involved in a school integration project in Targu Lapus. After four years of production and two years of editing we ended up with a paradigmatic story of hope, squandered opportunities, and infuriating cultural and institutional inertia. And racism, quite a bit of racism. Some intentional, some merely reflexive, yet all of it profoundly familiar to all Romanians (ourselves, the filmmakers, included). This is precisely why we were bracing so hard and for so long for the Romanian premiere. We knew that in Romania, even more than in other places in Europe or the United States, Our School would be holding a mirror up to its audience – an unflattering one at that. And there are few things as counter-productive and virulent as unexamined, defensive racism.

We did what we could to prepare for the premiere in terms of press, NGO partners on the ground, and the main characters themselves. The NGO partners were as nervous as we were and chomping at the bit to use the film for their own purposes. The characters got to see the film on their own terms before the festival premiere, on the principle that it is cruel and unusual treatment to see your own story projected on a very large screen with a large audience before absorbing it privately. The kids had never been to the cinema before, so they were extra nervous. Our youngest participant, Alin, helped to lighten the mood by eating three ice-creams in rapid succession and contently throwing up right before the screening.

The press was lukewarm, understandably, since they had not seen the film, and the international success of the new Romanian cinema over past ten years has made them unimpressed with projects with the kind of international festival success that Our School has had). The online comments to the advance press coverage came exclusively from people who had not seen it, but assumed that no film on Roma would ever help. They made violent threats and personal attacks against our team for “destroying Romania’s image abroad.” We imagined they were people who had too much time on their hands, but we were still put on notice: Our School had the potential of generating a strong backlash, and that was the last thing we wanted to happen.

Matters were not helped much by the great folk at the Transylvania Film Festival who programmed us in the largest cinema they had: 750 seats. We worried that the seats would remain empty or would be filled with people who do not like what they seen on the screen.

We worried about everything.

Whatever fears we had were dispersed in the first five minutes of the screening. The huge audience laughed loudly at even the smallest jokes in the film. They clapped after particularly poignant lines, making the projectionist worried that they would not hear the soundtrack. They started sniffling, visibly moved towards the end. And, when the credits ended and we all lined up on the stage, we found them giving the children a standing ovation. For five whole minutes.

Alin turned to me and whispered: “Are all of these guys Romanian?” Yes, they were. And they were applauding the courage, resilience, spirit and sass of Alin, Dana, Beni – and all the Romanian friends they managed to make, despite all odds, along the way. The audience had connected to the kids, managing to see themselves in our film without defensiveness or rancor. They found ways to process and understand what they could change in themselves by the time the credits stopped rolling.

After the film…

A teacher confessed to treating her Roma students as inferior. I wanted to put her in touch with the New York teacher who confessed during our Q&A at the Tribeca Film Festival that she had been tracking immigrant children in special education programs because she herself lacked support and know-how to integrate them.

A local mentioned a case of segregation next door to the screening venue – an activist invited the audience to investigate the case, right then and there. A journalist mused about what the Ministry of Education should do with the film – we referred him to the principal in Our School, who despite an awareness that the film showed him in a light that was “a little too true” (his words), ended up generously saying that it is an extraordinary tool that should be used to train and inform people not only in Romania, but abroad.

There were also hugs – lots of them. Alin, Beni, and Dana said that they were treated, for that one night, better than they had been treated, cumulatively, their entire life.

The press reaction that came in response to the screening was no less enthusiastic. A journalist confessed an allergy to issue films and declared herself not only surprised, but cured. An editorial talked about how Our School is not only a film about Roma, it is a film about us. A reputed blog said the audience had come in with fixed ideas and had come out with the urge to apologize to Roma children on behalf of all Romanians.

We know this was an ideal audience in many ways – progressive, trained by ten years of challenging festival experiences, and moved by the presence of the children in the room. But having an initial reaction like this from hundreds of people gives us confidence in what this film can do. It gives us trust that the film can accomplish what we always intended: Point to a systemic problem, make us understand it in the most direct, human way, and do the hardest things of all – change hearts and minds and open up a some hope for the future.

Guest post by Mona Nicoara, Director of Our School.

Our School is part of Working Films Reel Education collaborative.

The film screens at Silverdocs this Saturday, June 25th at 5:30pm.

Recently, I spent two days at the Communities for Public Education Reform (CPER) convening, an amazing gathering of grassroots education organizers and the foundations that support their work. I went to support the Reel Education filmmakers and others who were leading a panel discussion, “Moving Hearts and Minds: Connecting Filmmaking and Organizing.” Because of their experience at the Reel Education convening in February, Ly Nguyen of CPER and Roberta Furger of PICO CA, organized the session. They pulled together a great team that included filmmakers, Roland Legiardi Laura of To Be Heard and Marcia Jarmel of Speaking in Tongues, as well as filmmaker Susan Zeig who made a powerful film about education organizing called A Community Concern. Marcia, Susan, and Roland spoke about the concrete impact their films have had so far. Check out this video to hear how Speaking in Tongues has already advanced multilingual education programs in a variety of school systems.

The panel was rounded out with organizers and advocates who have also used film and video and even created it. Cesar Castrejon of Californians for Justice and Liz Guillen of Public Advocates spoke about the video that they and allied grassroots organizers in produced to get the word out about a lawsuit they filed against the state of California. The suits demands that the state revamp its school funding formula and make other changes to assure equitable access to quality education for all kids. Rosie Grant of the Paterson Education Fund also shared how their organization used A Community Concern and opened the eyes of the superintendent of Schools in Paterson, N.J. about the possibility of parents and communities having extensive power and influence over decisions made in the schools. Here’s a video of her sharing other ways their organization has used film recently.

The response from the education organizers in the room to these stories was incredible. They were energized and wanted to know more about where they could access great films like these. Hello Reel Education… (more to come on that below). What I found most interesting was that while many folks in the room had produced their own short videos to advance campaigns, many had never hosted screenings or used clips of full length documentaries in their work. As someone who is engrossed in the work of using film on a daily basis it was a good reality check to know that for some organizers this is a new approach and that they might need direction and resources both on how to access films and how to set up successful events. Their feedback will definitely help to inform how we continue to roll out the Reel Education collaborative.

We also put together a mini film festival at the CPER convening featuring trailers and clips from all seven of the Reel Education projects and A Community Concern. The room was packed with folks who enjoyed a late afternoon break from workshop sessions to watch these high energy and emotional trailers. When the lights came up, hands shot up from folks asking how they could access all of the films. It felt good to have confirmation in yet another setting of the power of bringing this cadre of films together as a tool to make change.

In addition to the great responses to these films, just being at this conference was completely inspiring. I heard amazing speeches and presentations by leaders in the fight for educational justice. Here’s just a snippet of one by Pedro Noguera.

On top of that I had great conversations with individual organizers and with the filmmakers about ways that we might collaborate to strategically position the Reel Education films and others as resources for communities to plug into their organizing efforts. I left incredibly energized about our work on Reel Education.

Growing up as a queer teenager in the South was very confusing and isolating. Often, I heard my parents refer to out of the ordinary members of our family as “black sheep.” A part of me always sided with the black sheep because a majority of the time I felt misunderstood. Fast forward 10 years later to present day when I am confident and proud of my identity. So much, in fact, that I started getting involved in LGBTQ activism and organized a night of film devoted to others who have been singled out as the black sheep… or pink sheep, rather.

Working Films is proud to be a sponsor at this year’s Pink Sheep Film Festival, held this Friday, June 10th, during Wilmington’s Pride Week. The Pink Sheep Festival showcases LGBTQ-themed films ranging from documentaries to fairy tales. The featured films of the evening will be two half hour documentaries, Put This on The Map and Whistlin’ Dixie. In Put This on The Map, twenty-six teenagers tell their experience of being queer in the suburbs of Seattle in East King County. Whistlin’ Dixie shifts the scenary to the South as filmmaker Meredith Heil gives spotlight to the many amazing musicians who call the South their home. The film features many bands from our very own state of North Carolina. Watch the trailers below:

Story Leads to Action
Sheffield Doc/Fest Venue: The Crucible Studio
Friday, June 10, 10:00am
Moderators: Working Films co-founders Robert West & Judith Helfand

Story Leads to Action makes the process of community engagement interactive and transparent. Join Working Films UK and Sheffield Doc/Fest as we craft the first steps in an interactive campaign for Marshall Curry’s new film If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front. Award-winning Guardian journalist Paul Lewis, Greenpeace’s Senior Climate Adviser Charlie Kronick, UK Uncut’s Adam Ramsay and John Stewart (credited with stopping the third runway at Heathrow) and workshop audience members will explore innovative distribution and online strategies for this “compelling doc about radical environmentalism”[1].

While Curry’s film focuses on one activist’s history with the US-based Earth Liberation Front, the narrative raises questions about UK activism unfolding now: How far is too far when it comes to campaigning for real world change? From the ‘siege of Fortnum and Masons’ to the exposure of environmentalist Mark Stone as an undercover police officer, British protests and the subsequent police response have garnered a huge amount of press. With an increasing number of people turning to direct action across a range of causes, the panel and audience will investigate links between these current trends and lessons drawn from the film.

At the Good Pitch NY last month, Brett Gaylor briefly discussed how the Mozilla Foundation is working to connect filmmakers and technologists. I followed up with him to see what that meant and he pointed me to the Web Made Movies project. According to the website, Web Made Movies is Mozilla’s open video lab where they’re “bringing filmmakers and hackers together to explore how modern browser technology can reshape moving images on the web”. So what does this mean? It basically looks like a mash-up of many different online tools ranging from Google maps and Wikipedia to Twitter and Flickr. Different points in the video trigger new information into the widgets displayed alongside of it. Still confused? The best way to understand this new tool is to watch it in action.

Web Made Movies has created tools to allow anyone to create their own interactive videos. To learn more about the tools and their plans for 2011, visit: webmademovies.org.