More than a dozen AU visual media students served on the crew of the film "Children Will Listen," which was screened last night in the Wechsler Performance Theater.
School of Communication Professor Charlene Gilbert presented the film, which chronicles 140 D.C. public school students as they put together a production of Steven Sondheim's "Into the Woods" to perform at the Kennedy Center.
About 25 people attended the screening of the documentary, which also premiered on PBS over Thanksgiving.
In her opening remarks, Gilbert estimated that 90 percent of the movie was shot by 16 AU students. She called the filming an "exciting experience."
The movie follows fourth- through eighth-graders from seven predominantly black D.C. public schools through nine months as they build a performance of "Into the Woods" from scratch. The film follows them from the first meeting, as they created costumes for the characters, into the performance itself at the Kennedy Center's AFI Theater.
A short film called "The Children of Birmingham" was then shown. The short film was a cartoon put together by Kids on the Hill, a Baltimore-based group of children ages 10-14. The cartoon chronicles the contributions of children in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Ala.
-ELLIOT SMILOWITZ
