Coming to theatres and to VOD tomorrow, Friday, November 21: THE HOMESTRETCH
Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly’s look at the lives of three homeless Chicago teens had its world premiere at Hot Docs this Spring. The doc has gone on to screen at AFI Docs, Citizen Jane, Indie Memphis, Human Rights Watch, and Hot Springs, among others.
de Mare and Kelly’s film opens with the sobering fact that between 2000-3000 youth are among Chicago’s homeless population before zeroing in on just three, Anthony, Kasey, and Roque, whose stories are largely unconnected except for their shared desire to better their situation via education. Technically speaking, none of these subjects is presently homeless – while Anthony and Kasey are no longer able to live in the under-resourced transitional youth program, Belfort House, due to age and curfew violations, respectively, both are set up in subsidized apartments. They continue to struggle, so their housing situation remains relatively insecure, but they at least are within the system and seeking solutions. Roque is far less at risk, however, having found a surrogate family in the form of his saintly teacher and substitute mother, Maria, and her husband and kids. His undocumented status presents a major hurdle, but Maria helps him circumvent this, even going to bat for him to ensure he gets enrolled in college after an initial rejection. His presence is a strange fit in the film, but perhaps is included as a wildly hopeful inspiration that things can get much better. The more outgoing Anthony and Kasey seem to be more appropriate subjects for the topic, as he reckons with job training and the realities of teen fatherhood while on probation, while she struggles to figure out her path, having been rejected by her family for her sexuality. As is often the problem with conventional survey approaches like the one taken here, the viewer is left wondering if the film would have been stronger had it instead focused on one intriguing, indelible character rather than three mildly engaging ones.
what (not) to doc 