#36. Our School – Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coca-Cozma
Since her film debut (as associate producer) on the 2001 Sundance Special Jury Prize winning Children Underground, Mona Nicoara has been hard at work on her filmmaking debut. Offering one more snapshot of the children in her native Romania, Our School – an IFP and Sundance Lab supported project that Nicoara co-directed with Miruna Coca-Cozma should find a spot in the World Documentary Comp section.
The doc tells the story of race relations in a small Transylvanian town through the eyes of Roma children struggling to break the barriers of segregation. The film follows three children – Alin, Beniamin, and Dana – as they are moved from a dead-end all-Roma school into a mainstream school together with Romanians, where they meet with varying degrees of success. As teachers reject the new Roma students, seven-year-old Alin, the youngest of the three, falters in isolation, with little support or encouragement from his own illiterate parents. On the other hand, twelve-year-old Beniamin finds the strength to stay on in the friendship of Romanian classmates and in his mother’s unwavering faith in his chance for a better future. Finally, sixteen-year-old Dana, an intelligent young woman who was the best student in the segregated school, abandons school for early marriage and motherhood.
* Producers: Mona Nicoara
(IONCINEMA.com Preview Page // IMDB Link)
 |
 |
