The Pushouts

Description

Bay Area filmmaker and two-time Golden Gate Award winner Katie Galloway’s documentary The Pushouts focuses on the alarming rate of high school dropouts and the critical state of public education through the inspiring story of Victor Rios. Rios was a gang member in West Oakland who was headed for a life of incarceration when he met an inspirational teacher. Now a professor at UC Santa Barbara, he and his mentor dedicate their lives to motivating young Mexican and African-American teens to realize their potential.

What makes this film particularly poignant is its ability to illustrate its theme of re-framing the story (from one of individual failing or “dropping out” to one of societal failing or “pushing out”) by literally accessing an earlier, pivotal documentary on the challenges of a troubled high school. That would be the 1994 Frontline special School Colors, which featured (among others) Victor Rios in his time in and out of Berkeley High. We see in flashback and present tense the mentors whose forward-thinking humanity (“I don’t teach math, I teach students,” says one) gave Rios the lifeline he needed then and the memories he feeds off of today as he continues mentoring others.

Screens with Futbolistas 4 Life (Jun Stinson, USA 2018, 39 min)
Amid threats of deportation and recent deaths to gun violence, Oakland students band together to raise money for a new soccer field in this inspiring short documentary from local filmmaker Jun Stinson.
 
This is a free community screening. Registration required.

Trailer

Film Details