American Teen

AMERICAN TEEN was a huge hit at the recent Sundance Film Festival, winning the Documentary Directing Award for director Nanette Burstein. Burstein spent the 2005-2006 school year shooting footage of seniors at Warsaw Community High School in Indiana. Her film chronicles some of their hopes and lots of their fears as they navigate the tricky waters of small-town high school life and impending adulthood. Megan is a queen bee, daughter of a prominent surgeon, student council VP, beautiful, smart, and really, really mean. Colin is a star basketball player in a sports-obsessed community who stresses over being good enough to get a college scholarship; if he doesn't, he'll have to join the Army. Jake, an acne-plagued misfit, is unlucky in love, but finds consolation in computer games and the marching band. And then there's Hannah, her liberal ideas at odds with those of her conservative town, who dreams of being a film director. AMERICAN TEEN is not your grandma's talking-heads documentary. Burstein uses brilliant animated sequences to express the kids' fantasy lives, plus a pop soundtrack, voiceovers and graphic collages in the style of MTV's “Laguna Beach.” It's a new style of documentary for a new generation totally at home in front of the camera. –B.B.