As part of the 2010 Little Rock Film Festival, the Clinton School will host screenings of five documentary films. Click here to watch trailers for each film.
Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio, directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas
(Saturday, June 5 at 12:30 p.m.)
– This film tells the story of the Rural Studio, design/build architecture program created by the late architect Samuel Mockbee, which allows students create charity architecture for impoverished communities in rural Alabama. Guided by passionate interviews with Mockbee, the film shows how a group of students use their creativity and compassion to craft a home for their charismatic, destitute client, Jimmie Lee Matthews.
My Run, directed by Tim VandeSteeg
(Saturday, June 5 at 3:30 p.m.)
– Narrated by Academy-Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, this film tells the tale of two incredible journeys. One journey was complete in 1996, when Terry Hitchcock ran from Minneapolis to Atlanta in 75 consecutive days, covering the equivalent of a marathon or more each day. But Terry’s “mega-marathon” wasn’t even close to being his greatest challenge, which began 12 years earlier when his wife died of breast cancer, and Terry suddenly found himself alone and raising three small children.
The Last Survivor, directed by Michael Kleiman and Michael Pertnoy
(Sunday, June 6 at 12:30 p.m.)
– This film presents the stories of genocide survivors and their struggle to make sense of tragedy by working to educate, motivate and promulgate a civic response to mass atrocity crimes with a focus on awareness, prevention and promoting social activism and civic engagement. Following the survivors of four different genocides and mass atrocities – The Holocaust, Rwanda, Darfur and Congo – the film presents an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and deal with similar issues today.
Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim
(Sunday, June 6 at 3:00 p.m.)
– The first film acquired after this year’s Sundance Film Festival, this film follows a handful of promising kids through America’s education system, showing schools that inhibit, rather than encourage, academic growth. Through these stories, the film undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying “drop-out factories” and “academic sinkholes,” methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems. However, the film finds hope in education reformers and charter schools as future of American education.
ReGeneration, directed by Philip Montgomery
(Sunday, June 6 at 8:00 p.m.)
– This film is about the causes of rampant cynicism in today’s youth and their apathetic view towards social and political causes. Unique commentary on the problems facing society are explored through an inspired collective of musicians, a 20-something conservative family and a group of five suburban high school students looking for their place in the world. The late Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and Talib Kweli make appearances in the movie which is narrated by actor Ryan Gosling.