“We are failing our kids every single day.” Starz just announced their new TV show, American to Me, will premiere in August.
From Steve James, the docuseries “follows students, teachers and administrators in suburban Chicago’s Oak Park and River Forest High School over the course of a year.”
America to Me premieres on Starz on August 26th at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Take a sneak peek and read more info below:
Santa Monica, Calif., June 29, 2018 – Starz announced today that the new unscripted 10-part series “America To Me” will premiere on Sunday, August 26, 2018 at 9 PM ET/PT. This insightful documentary series created by Emmy Award(R)-winning and Oscar(R)-nominated filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters, Life Itself, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail), and produced by Participant Media and Kartemquin Films. The official trailer provides a first look into an academic year at Chicagoland’s elite Oak Park and River Forest High School.
“America To Me” follows students, teachers and administrators in suburban Chicago’s Oak Park and River Forest High School, one of the country’s highest performing and diverse public schools, over the course of a year, as they grapple with decades-long racial and educational inequities – in addition to the challenges that today’s teenagers face. Digging deep into the experiences of a racially diverse student population, “America to Me” sparks candid conversations about what has succeeded and what has failed in the quest to achieve racial equity and overcome obstacles in our education system. In this part observational character story and part high-school confessional, James captures critical moments within this vibrant high-school ecosystem.
“America to Me” made its world premiere with the first five episodes at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in the new “Indie Episodic” category. Episodes were also previewed at Full Frame and AFI DOCS.
To inspire action on the educational equity issues highlighted in “America to Me,” Participant Media and Starz are partnering to launch a social impact campaign. The campaign is designed to encourage candid conversations about racism through a downloadable Community Conversation Toolkit and elevate student voices through a national spoken-word poetry contest. Alongside the release of each new episode, the campaign will host a high-profile screening event in one city across the country. Over the course of the ten weeks, these ten events will seed a timely national dialogue anchored by the series, and kick off activities across the country to inspire students, teachers, parents and community leaders to develop local initiatives that address inequities in their own communities.
Join the conversation at http://www.participant.com/AmericaToMe.
James directed and executive produced the 10-part documentary series via his longtime production home, Kartemquin Films. The series is executive produced by Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll (Lincoln) and Diane Weyermann (An Inconvenient Truth), and by Gordon Quinn (The Trials of Muhammad Ali), Betsy Steinberg (Edith+Eddie) and Justine Nagan (Minding the Gap) for Kartemquin FIlms.
Bing Liu (Minding the Gap), Rebecca Parrish (Radical Grace) and Kevin Shaw (The Street Stops Here) served as segment directors. John Condne (Love. Blood. Kryptonite.) served as the series producer, along with Risé Sanders-Weir (Chicago Stories). Film editors were Leslie Simmer (Raising Bertie) and David E. Simpson (Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise).
Starz retains all domestic multiplatform pay TV and SVOD rights to the series. Lionsgate, which represents international rights to Participant’s feature films and select documentaries, will retain all international and domestic distribution and home entertainment rights to the series.”
What do you think? Are you interested in the American school system? Will you watch America to Me?
