37th cleveland international film festival :: April 3 - april 14, 2013
Film Festival Blog
March 28th, 2011 @ 3:25pm

If Superman Landed...

I just sat in on an amazing Q&A session.

It followed the first Festival screening of Facing Forward, Laura Paglin's documentary about an inner-city charter school here in Cleveland and the challenges its students and teachers face on a daily basis. I have something of a bias toward the film because -- as those of you who picked up the Daily already know -- I was on its post-production crew and helped with the editing of the film.

After the credits rolled, most of the audience stayed in their seats to ask Laura questions about the school, the children whose lives she'd followed, and what might happen next. One patron said he felt the film was "more important than Waiting For Superman," another film about the challenges of modern education. And, admittedly biased or not, I think he's probably right, especially given the heated public debates about education right now.

For anyone who believes that teachers are just glorified babysitters, or that kids in the inner city are beyond saving, I challenge you to come see the film. There will be a Film Forum on the subject of public education at the next screening, which will be on Wednesday at 7:40 pm. This might just be a life-changer. And for anyone who wants to see just what amazing things are really possible in public education, this is the film you need to see, too.

After today's screening, we met one of E-Prep's graduates. She and her mother had come to see the film, and both of them spoke with great feeling about how the experience changed their lives. The questions and answers went on so long, and everyone remained so intent on learning more, that we all ended up having to be ushered out of the theater so that the cleaning staff could get it ready for the next screening!

This is the power of film. We've had a lot of screenings like this in the Festival, too -- where all of you have become so engaged and interested and have left intent upon learning more and changing the world. I loved seeing how many questions everybody had, and how energized everybody was. It's so wonderful to see, yet again, how much more film can do than the simple mindless entertainment we find in most theaters the rest of the year.

And for those of you who still had lots of questions when we had to leave, pick up the wonderful flyer our Lights! Camera! Action Steps! team has put together. The education debate is right now, so this film couldn't be more timely.

Posted by Lara Klaber

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