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Screen/Society--Rights! Camera! Action!--"The First Year"

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Thursday, April 11, 2013
7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Rights! Camera! Action!

Film Screening: "The First Year" (Davis Guggenheim, 2001, USA, English, color, DVD) -- Five young teachers in Los Angeles public schools are followed through their first year of teaching in some of the U.S.'s toughest elementary, middle and high schools. Maurice Rabb, Nate Monley, Genevieve DeBose, Joy Kraft-Watts, and Georgene Acosta struggle to keep their students in school, fight city hall for funding, find special services, even teach without a classroom. "The First Year" shows what happens when the system fails to serve, when families fail to support, and what the teachers must do when their idealism isn't enough, cutting through the rhetoric of the national debate about education to remind us of the powerful relationship between a teacher and a student. At times, the passion and empathy these five teachers demonstrate is profoundly moving--not because they're performing great feats, but because of the simple, small acts of faith that so rarely get made. --Winner of the Grand Jury Award at the 2002 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival! -- discussion to follow! -- Co-Sponsored by the Archives for Human Rights & Documentary Arts in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and Adelante Education Coalition.

Contact: Hank Okazaki