On opposite sides of the world, living seemingly opposite lives, three Brooklyn teens travel to meet with their peers in Bethlehem. Using words to combat and describe their daily struggles, they discover how a grassroots movement can empower the lives of children living in chaos and conflict. The documentary, which takes place in Palestine, passionately conveys the resilience of both Black and Hispanic American and Palestinian teenagers struggling with the adverse circumstances in their daily lives. Through their writing, it becomes clear these teenagers share a fear of failure, peer pressure, and an uncertain future, overwhelmed by the call to revolutionize the environments in which they live. Through performing their writing, these teenagers demonstrate that they and their peers are not victims or predators but an integral, vulnerable part of the solution, dispelling misunderstandings and rectifying misconceptions.
Fran Tarr is a novelist, screenwriter, documentary film maker and Education Coordinator for the prestigious Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company, which focuses on introducing NYC students to the Practical Aesthetic Acting Technique and extraordinary theater. She was also the Education Director for the Women's Project's Ten Centuries of Women Playwrights program, which teaches playwrighting in the NYC public schools, for the past 14 years. With Ten Centuries Fran has been working with Jackie Leopold, a determined and dedicated English teacher at Independence High School, an alternative high school for students 17-21 years of age. What can she say? Working with Jackie's attitude-laden, street savvy kids to reach into the recesses of those places they carefully protect to write original plays of phenomenal honesty and dignity has been a mind-altering experience.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDRz5XiRbtA
Friday, 10 June 2011, 7:00 PM
Al-Noor School, 675 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
This event is free & open to the public. Please RSVP to eir.nyc@gmail.com
