Our School

Short Synopsis

Three Roma ("Gypsy") children from a small Transylvanian town participate in a project to desegregate the local school, struggling against indifference, tradition and bigotry with humor, optimism and sass. Our School is a captivating and often funny story about hope and race, and an elegy about generational prejudice and squandered opportunities.

Description/Treatment

Our School follows three Roma children - Alin, Beniamin, and Dana - as they struggle to break the barriers of segregation, candidly challenging entrenched stereotypes and tring to make the best of the cards dealt to them by adults along the way. The film begins in 2006, as the children are moved from a dead-end segregated school on the outskirts of Targu Lapus, Romania, into a mainstream school in the center of town, where they will learn together with Romanians. Once in the mainstream school, the children’s hopes and optimism are met with low expectations and further isolation.

Our longitudinal approach and the stable, all-Romanian crew allowed us deep access, steering clear of exoticism and sensationalism. As a result, this feature-length documentary shows the lives of Roma children from close up, in unflinching yet intimate visual style characteristic of the new Romanian naturalistic cinematography. The hand-held camera allows for the complex construction of scenes, at times catching whispered exchanges between children during class while at other times lingering on the evocative settings of the small Transylvanian town to convey the subtle shifts in atmosphere that come with fear of change and with unresolved, long-standing racial tension. Ten extended shoots, stretched over four years, have allowed the project’s small, stable crew to follow fully realized narrative arcs, and gain unfettered access to the children’s most intimate hopes and fears, which make up the complex emotional structure of the film.

The post-production process centers on constructing an emotionally charged narrative arc out of the three intertwined stories of Alin, Beniamin and Dana. The story is propelled by vérité scenes which allow characters to develop and make themselves understood on their own terms. The twists and turns of the story line are articulated in slow, tense reveals that are faithful to the cultural norms and rhythms of the small town.

The film draws viewers into the details and rhythms of the small Romanian town, revealing the devil in these details: What does it mean to prepare for integration in a makeshift home with no running water or electricity? What long-term harm does a teacher’s refusal to touch a second-grader inflict? And which of our individual actions can break the cycle of discrimination and inequality? The gravity of the main question of the film - how does racial bias affect the destiny of its victims? - is balanced by the protagonists’ natural levity and the comedy of human foibles and absurd prejudice.

A primary document on how policies and principles play out on the ground, this documentary illuminates the day-to-day workings and emotional intricacies of race relations anywhere in the world through the deceptively distant world of “Gypsies” and Transylvanian peasants. By telling a compelling human story that is part of a broader rights movement, Our School seeks to mobilize new energies at a moment that is ripe for change, when Europe finally has its Brown vs. Board of Education moment.