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Eight years ago it struck me that I was in the midst of a movie.

At the time, I was reporting a People “Hero” feature about a school created to save struggling students from the school-to-prison pipeline. Suspended or expelled for misdeeds under academic zero-tolerance policies, these kids in my St. Louis hometown — often traumatized by violent streets — risked winding up dead or in jail without ever collecting a high school diploma. Their fates illustrate the very real incarceration of America’s youth in startling numbers that disproportionately target Black teens.

For a year I was in-and-out of Innovative Concept...

The Urban Chestnut Beer poured freely (because it was free) at the Urban Chestnut Microbrewery in the Grove neighborhood inSt. Louis last night. It was the closing-night party for the 26th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival where the slate of audience-choice and juried-competition winners were announced to an attentive crowd. Sliff presented four major filmmaking awards during the course of the 2017 festival: Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award to Dan Mirvish; Women in Film Award to Pam Grier; Lifetime Achievement Awards to Sam Pollard; and the Contemporary Cinema Award to Marco Williams.

Tribeca Film Institute’s If/Then Short Documentary Pitch Competition

Tribeca Film Institute, in partnership with Sliff, sought short documentary projects by filmmakers living and working in the Midwest for its new If/Then Short Documentary Program, made possible with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Five projects were invited to enter...

Opening in a court room, For Ahkeem finds its protagonist Daje, an African American girl from the inner city of North St. Louis, sentenced to Judge Jimmy Edwards’ Inner City Academy (Ica), an alternative high school for those with violent and troubling records, providing one-on-one academic counseling and services. It would appear her path to college seems blocked again by an upbringing in a rough, economically disadvantaged neighborhood, although she does have a support network in her mother and well-meaning administrators at Ica.

Set partly during the Ferguson turmoil in the wake of Michael Brown’s death, For Ahkeem is a film in the classic cinéma vérité tradition, shinning a light on the plight of our inner cities. The film is a great deal less hopeful than the post-Freddie Gray Baltimore-set Step, destined to be a crowdpleaser this summer. For Ahkeem chooses to follow one young African American struggling to...

For Ahkeem Trailer from Weissman Studio on Vimeo.

After Judge Jimmie M. Edwards founded an alternative, last-resort school for juvenile offenders in the same neighborhood as the gang-ridden public housing complex where he’d grown up in St. Louis, Missouri, editors and readers of People selected him as one of the 2011 Heroes of the Year.

Inspired by the mission of the school’s caring staff — but also by the kids who found traction turning their lives around —People Staff Writer Jeff Truesdell, who reported the magazine’s feature about Edwards, and a team of filmmakers have now made Edwards’ Innovative...

In For Ahkeem, nonfiction filmmakers Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest follow 17-year-old Daje Shelton for more than two years, beginning when she's ordered by a Missouri judge to complete her education in a court-supervised alternative high school as a result of disciplinary infractions. By keeping a tight focus on the subject as she navigates senior year, early motherhood and the crushing stigma of negative expectations, the film assembles a poignant snapshot of black struggle that humanizes a range of social issues through the first-hand experiences of one young woman.

"Either you make it for me or you don't...

Documentary is an infinite form, but — at the risk of being terribly reductive — most documentary subjects can be divided into one of two groups: People who are too exceptional to resist, and people who are too ordinary to ignore. The former hinges on interest, the latter on empathy. A black teenager in a run-down suburb of St. Louis, Daje Shelton not only falls into that second category, her story defines why we need it.

Seventeen years old and already convinced that she’s already doomed to a dead end, Daje is a student who’s teetering on the edge of becoming a statistic; she’s growing up in the state that kicks more black kids out of school than any other, and she can’t help but feel the inertia of that fact. “For Ahkeem” lucidly captures that feeling as well as any non-fiction film since “Hoop Dreams,” even if...

“For Ahkeem” follows the story of Daje Shelton, a 17-year old girl who ends up in a court-supervised alternative high school after getting into a fight at her school. She’s from a tough St. Louis neighborhood, but realizes she wants a better future for herself and is committed to turn her life around.

But staying focused on school proves to be a challenge for the eleventh grader, who loses multiple friends to gun violence. She also falls in love for the first time; his name is Antonio. Daje gets pregnant and is faced with the harsh reality of having to raise her son under the same rough circumstances she grew up in. The story takes place just as the Ferguson conflict is erupting a few miles down the road.

Read More: Sony Pictures Classics Acquires ‘A Fantastic Woman’ — Berlin 2017

The documentary film is helmed by Emmy award-winning filmmakers Jeremy S. Levine...

World premieres include Barrage, starring Isabelle Huppert and her daughter Lolita Chammah.Scroll down for full list

This year’s Forum programme at the Berlin Film Festival (Feb 9-19), which highlights avant garde and experimental works, will feature 47 films, including 29 world premieres.

These include the premiere of Laura Schroeder’s Barrage, which stars Isabelle Huppert alongside her daughter Lolita Chammah in the story of a young woman who returns to Luxembourg after a 10-year absence to spend time with her estranged child. Huppert plays the grandmother, who has fostered the young girl during that absence.

Read: ‘Barrage’, starring Isabelle Huppert and daughter Lolita, finds sales home

Having its international premiere at Forum this year will be Golden Exits, the new feature from American filmmaker Alex Ross Perry. His previous credits include Queen Of Earth, which premiered at Berlin in 2015. His latest tells the story of a young Australian woman who comes to New York for a few months...

The San Francisco Film Society has just unveiled the three winners of the 2016 Sffs Documentary Film Fund awards. Totaling $75,000, the funds will support the feature-length documentaries in post-production and help push them towards completion. Chosen for their compelling stories, intriguing characters and innovative visual approach, the winners are: “For Ahkeem” by Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest, “The Rescue List” by Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink and Peter Bratt’s “Woman in Motion.”

“These projects are great examples of balance between artistic vision and social impact,” stated the jury in a statement. “They tell neglected or overlooked stories by exploring the lives of very interesting characters who stand for larger social issues. For ‘Ahkeem’ is an extremely patient verité film, yet with a sense of political urgency in the way it tackles its complex subject. ‘The Rescue List’ portrays an artful balance of ethnography and visual poetry while it brings...

Today, the Sundance Institute announces the participants for its weeklong Creative Film Producing Initiative at the Sundance Resort in Utah. This includes 11 feature film and documentary projects for the Creative Producing Labs, and more than 50 industry leaders for the Creative Producing Summit. The Institute’s Creative Producing Initiative encompasses a year-round series of Labs and Fellowships, nurturing the next generation of independent producers so that they can help sustain and support the vibrancy of independent film.

Read More: Sundance Institute Announces Projects For Its 2016 Screenwriters Lab, Doc Edit and Story Labs & Theatre-Makers Residency

The Feature Film Creative Producing Lab takes place from August 1st through 5th. It identifies emerging producers and, under the guidance of Creative Advisors, allows them to develop their creative instincts and evolve their skills at all stages of the project. Lab Fellows continue on through the Creative Producing Summit and receive ongoing yearlong mentorship, granting, and...