AMERICAN INDEPENDENT COMPETITION - DOCUMENTARIES
SPONSORED BY

Sunday, April 12 at 1:00pm at Regal Winter Park Village
Thursday, April 14 at 4:45pm at Enzian Theater
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USA, 2004, 54 MIN
DIRECTED BY ELLEN SPIRO
SOUTHEAST PREMIERE
Girls Scouts behind bars? Be prepared for an unorthodox, sweet, and transforming story that follows the girls of Gatesville, Texas Troop 1500. Well-versed in the “Be Prepared” mantra of the Girl Scouts, spunky troop leader Julia Cuba guides her charges Jasmine, Caitlin, Mikaela, Julia, Jessica, and Jessica into the concrete jungle in which their mothers live. Vintage footage brilliantly captures the woody wilderness normally associated with scouting, but it has nothing on the poignant wilderness faced by the troop members as they struggle to connect with their incarcerated mothers. The daughters must continually adapt to new emotional territory, and the mothers find that their best intentions are too often trumped by their weaknesses. With its beautiful camerawork and skillful use of videotaped interviews conducted by the daughters and their moms, TROOP 1500 is a candid, moving look at families torn apart by crime but trying to relate beyond and behind prison walls.

PRECEDED BY

DIMMER



USA, 2004, 12 MIN
DIRECTED BY TALMAGE COOLEY
EAST COAST PREMIERE, 2ND US SHOWING
A gang of blind teenagers fight, laugh, and goof off in this surprisingly gritty and unsentimental documentary set in the abandoned factories and streets of Buffalo. A nonfiction work from the director of Pol Pot’s Birthday (FFF 2004).

PRECEDED BY

CALVIN'S WORLD



USA, 2004, 14 MIN
DIRECTED BY JUDI STROH AND LAUREN KINSLER
EAST COAST PREMIERE, 2ND US SHOWING
Calvin is very different from the last three generations of his family. How? Well, as its only hearing member, he had to learn sign language as a baby so he could communicate with his family.