"SENIOR
YEAR", A new 12-part documentary,
premiered on PBS
The
hour-long show will run for 12 weeks. In "Senior Year", the camera
follows the lives of students at LA's Fairfax High during the
1999/2000 school year. Six young filmmakers followed 15 students.
The
amazing soundtrack reflects the mix of characters found in this
film, and many of the musicians featured have worked with the
Artists Network over the years: Reg E. Gaines, Bill Lee, Ozomatli,
The Coup, East La Sabor Factory, Jerry Quickley, Oscar Brown Jr.,
Lysa Flores, Ani Di Franco, Rakaa (from Dilated Peoples), Medusa,
Slowrider, Sheila Nichols and more...
"Senior
Year" filmmaker David Zeiger has been active with the Artists
Network, and his earlier documentaries include "The Band" and
"Displaced in the New South" which have aired on the "POV" series
on PBS.
check out "Senior Year" website: pbs.org/senioryear
Read
David Zeiger's statement, 'Our Grief Is Not A Cry for War'
Dave
Zeiger's 'Funny Old Guy's'
Director's
Statement
A
few years ago I made a film about my son Danny's junior year in
high school called The Band, which aired on P.O.V. in 1998. While
I was making that film, Hannah, a friend of Danny's turned eighteen.
When, on her birthday, I asked her how it felt, she responded
"Eighteen is the oldest you will ever be." She went
on to explain that all your life until then, eighteen looms as
a monumental goal - the pinnacle of youthdom. Never again will
you have a goal like that in your life - thus, it's the oldest
you will ever be.
Her
insight stuck in my head and became the seed for Senior Year,
a documentary series following 15 high school seniors for the
entire school year. The nine months of production was completed
on graduation day, June 22, 2000. My goal with Senior Year is
to make a series that truly captures that exhilarating and terrifying
moment in time that Hannah was describing, and to do it in the
particular context of the world inhabited by teenagers today.
So
I went back to my alma mater, Fairfax High in Los Angeles, and
found that it had evolved from a white, middle class, primarily
Jewish school with a reputation for sending lots of kids to the
Ivy League (myself not included), into a wildly diverse, exciting
campus with students from over thirty different countries and
just about every walk of life in the city.
I
spent one semester at the school meeting dozens of kids to find
the ones we would be following, and went to the UCLA and USC film
schools to hire a diverse group of young, talented filmmakers
to spend a year living in and filming their world. The result,
of course, is Senior Year, a series that is both far ranging and
extremely intimate, both timeless and timely.
It's
timeless because it is about something that, in it's essence,
everyone either has gone through, is going through or will go
through. And it is timely because it is about a generation that
is living a life never before seen in this country. This is the
generation that has grown up in the intense cultural and racial
mix that exploded into many parts of this country and the world
starting in the 1980's.
For
them, race and nationality have a different meaning than they
do for their parents' or any previous generation, and "diversity"
isn't a concept it's their world. The kids of Senior Year are
on the cutting edge of a new culture emerging in this country,
one who's outlines and contours are yet to be known. They are
neither a melting pot nor a saladbowl - they are individuals who,
if we listen, can be our teachers and guides into the new century.
David Zeiger, Director
reviews
of "Senior Year"
