A documentary about students at a Yucca Valley alternative high school was named the winner Saturday of the Special Jury Award for Vérité Filmmaking at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Directors Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe focus their film on the problems of three students at Black Rock High School—Joey McGee, Jennifer Coffield, and Lee Bridges—and how their principal, Vonda Viland, uses empathy to help them get through their family crises and classroom problems. Variety says, “As depicted by directors Fulton and Pepe, they’re all inherently good kids interested in transcending their unhappy situations, but stymied in those efforts by lifelong social/emotional conditioning—from parents, and peers—that’s led to negative habits, perspectives and attitudes regarding who they are, what they’re capable of, and how to make something of themselves.” The directors plan to screen their documentary at film festivals around the country for the next year before it will be shown in wide release.
