Opening this Friday, September 24: WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”
Davis Guggenheim scored a triple coup at Sundance: his newest film was pre-emptively bought by Paramount on the opening day of the festival before its world premiere, Bill Gates made a visit to Park City to support the project, and the film won the Audience Award for Best US Documentary. Since then, much support has been put behind the film, including a smart campaign gathering pledges from audience members to see the film, which have translated into real benefits for public schools.
Like his most notable previous project, Guggenheim’s film looks at a very inconvenient truth: America’s public education system is broken. He comprehensively dissects the reasons why – including an insular and powerful teachers union that protects terrible educators, reshuffling them from one school to the next, rather than showing them the door – and profiles a number of students and the efforts of their parents to secure for them a decent education. This is the kind of non-fiction project that should incite public outrage and lead to real and lasting reform, and one hopes that with the support of its powerful advocates, it can have the “super” power to school the education system.
what (not) to doc 