Our School Is Out on DVD in Switzerland!

Photo (c) Miruna Coca-Cozma, 2011

After a long theatrical run in 2012, Our School is out on DVD in Switzerland! Thanks to Co-Director and Co-Producer Miruna Coca-Cozma, the film came out on DVD in late May - and is now available at all major vendors in Switzerland, with French subtitles. The official launch, hosted by our partner organization MESEMROM, will take place on June 26, at 7pm, at Théâtre Cité Bleue in Geneva. Miruna Coca-Cozma will be there to present a screening of the film, answer questions after, and welcome our audience with a drink and her trademark energy. Thank you to all who made this happen and supported the film in Switzerland over all these years during its making and its release - and a big thank-you to our lovely audience there!

Our School is a New York Times Critics' Pick!

  We are thrilled to be selected as a Critics' Pick in The New York Times today! Jeannette Catsoulis's review, published ahead of Our School's limited engagement presented by the Independent Filmmaker Project and the Romanian Film Initiative at the reRun theater in New York notes:

"Part case study on entrenched racism, part heartbreaking human-rights story, Our School observes the feinting of small-town officials in rural Transylvania as they try to duck a mandate to integrate Roma children into the regular school system. Following three Roma, or Gypsy, youngsters for four years beginning in 2006, the directors, Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coca-Cozma, record the spasms of desegregation with patient persistence... And as events gather tragic momentum, the filmmakers see no need to underline their shamefulness. There’s no shortage of Romanians happy to do it for them."

Two days ago, The Village Voice also published an excellent review of Our School, under the provocative title "Seriously, People Still Hate Gypsies?" Nick Pinkerton noted that: 

"Despite the efforts of many interviewees to seem broad-minded, Nicoara has a knack for ferreting out moments that reveal actual Romanian attitudes—there's an Audi-driving priest and his wife, whose great act of charity is letting Dana work for them for free, and the teacher assigned to a Roma classroom who exasperatedly says, 'They have violence in their blood!' The school director will later opine, 'They come from an environment that lures them into dropping out and into tribal life,' anticipating his failure, but Our School does much to establish how that Roma 'environment' is reinforced from the outside."

And Film Journal International pointed out in its review that: 

"Our School's final, four-years-later summation—more than a coda, less than a fully fleshed-out segment—falls somewhere between starry optimism and resignation, and it's remarkably affecting in the way real life often is. Dana, Beni and Alin's lives have changed...not dramatically, but appreciably, and it's hard not to come away with a new (or renewed) respect for the potential power of baby steps."

The film opens tonight at reRun (147 Front St in Dumbo, Brooklyn), with a special Q&A with Director Mona Nicoara and attorney James Goldston, who argued on behalf of Roma children in landmark desegregation cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights. Most of early screenings are already sold out online. The remaining tickets can be purchased here.

Our School at the ReRun Theater in NYC!

Image from of reRuntheater.com

Between January 18-24, Our School opens for a week-long run in New York City at the delightful reRun theater in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Tickets and showtimes are available here. Director Mona Nicoara will be doing Q&As after each 7:30pm and 12:30pm screening, with special guests as follows: 

• Friday, January 18, 7:30pm: James Goldston, who litigated the landmark school segregation cases before the European Court of Human Rights; he is currently the Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative;
• Saturday, January 19, 12:30pm: Margareta Matache, who led Romania's largest Roma rights groups, Romani CRISS, and is currently a research fellow at Harvard University;
• Monday, January 21, 7:30pm: Ethel Brooks, PhD, a Roma scholar from the US; she teaches women's and gender studies and sociology at Rutgers University;
• Tuesday, January 22, 7:30pm: George Eli, NY-based Roma documentary film director, author of the charming Searching for the 4th Nail
• Wednesday, January 23, 7:30pm: Bogdan Apetri, NY-based Romanian director of Thessaloniki Film Fest-winner Periferic (Outbound); on the faculty of Columbia University's film program;
• Thursday, January 24, 7:30pm: Ted Shaw, who teaches a course on segregation in Europe and the US and the Columbia Law School, and has spearheaded many school integration cases while leading the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

For us, this is a homecoming of sorts: The program of reRun is curated by the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP). Our School has been in the IFP family since 2008, when Milton Tabbot selected us for IFP's Independent Film Week meet market at a crucial stage in the project; that helped us receive the support and visibility we needed to complete the film. Since then, the IFP continued to support Our School though its fiscal sponsorship program and the 2010 Documentary Labs.

Adding to the sentimental background for this week-long run is the knowledge that the reRun screening room is where we showed several work-in-progress versions of the project and received feedback from trusted colleagues who work in documentary film. We are very happy to offer the finished film to our home town Brooklyn and to show it in the same room where worked our way though the cut with the help of the wonderful community of documentary filmmakers here in New York.

Our School's run is also proudly co-presented by the Romanian Film Initiative. the brave and dedicated team behind the annual Romanian film festival in New York, organized together with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Transylvania International Film Festival.

So come see us in this lovely indie theater offering comfy reclaimed car seats and some very Transylvanian-sounding popcorn with duck fat and paprika!

Expanded Romania Release: Tour, DVD & Online Streaming

Image courtesy of Centrul Ceh & One World Romania

We are thrilled to announce that, following our tour of Romanian cities this spring, Our School is expanding to additional cities in Romania this fall, with our partners at One World Romania On Tour. We'll be screening in the following new cities: 

• Brasov on Wed, Oct 31 8pm at Centrul Cultural Reduta
• Galati on Sat, Nov 3 5:30pm at Muzeul de Arta Vizuala
• Targu Mures on Fri, Nov 9 4pm at Palatul Culturii
• Sighetu Marmatiei on Fri, Nov 9 8pm at Sala Radio Sighet
• Resita on Wed, Nov 14 5pm at Colegiul T.Lalescu
• Miercurea Ciuc on Thurs, Nov 15 8pm at Muzeul Secuiesc
• Sfantu Gheorghe on Sat, Nov 17 7pm at Sala Ecou 

Our School will be launched on DVD in November as part of a wonderful first collection of documentary DVDs put out by our partners at One World Romania. The DVDs will be launched in Bucharest on November 22 at Libraria Bastilia and November 26 at Centrul Ceh. Meanwhile, they can be pre-ordered at a 20% discount here.

Finally, Our School will later become available for streaming in Romania on the WebKino platform launched by our distributor, Cristian Mungiu's Voodoo Films. We will update the launch date and post the text code for accessing the film as soon as they become available.

Our School Broadens Swiss Release

Our School poster at Bio Carouge in Geneva. Photo (c) Miruna Coca-Cozma

Following an eight-week theatrical release in Swiss Romande this spring, Our School expands its run to new cinemas, as well as to the German-speaking Swiss territories this fall. 

We have reached out to Swiss teachers' groups, human rights organizations and authorities to make the best use of the film as a springboard for a broader discussion about Roma integration and the pressing issue of overcoming prejudice in Switzerland, where Roma migrants often face backlash. 

Here is a partial list of Swiss screenings lined up for this fall:

• Haute école pédagogique Vaud in Lausanne shows excerpts of the film on Sun, Sept 22 at 2pm at UNIL, Dorigny, as part of the Assises romandes de l'éducation, which focus this year on school integration; a full screening follows in the evening, with a discussion conducted by Miruna Coca-Cozma 
• Our School is this year's opening film for the CinéBrunch Regards d'Ailleurs series in Fribourg on Sat, Oct 13 at 11am at Cinemotion Rex; Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma follows the screening
• Centre de Culture ABC in La-Chaux-de-Fonds will follow a screening on Tue, Oct 23 at 5:30pm  with a round table on Roma integration with the participation of Amnesty International Switzerland, the President of the Neuchâtel State Council and the Head of the Department of Education, representatives of the Lausanne Police, and director Miruna Coca-Cozma; Our School will also screen at ABC on Sat, Oct 27 and Sun, Oct 28 at  4pm
• Cinéma de Cossonay shows Our School on Wed, Oct 24 at 8:30pm, again with a Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma
• The wonderful arthouse cinema Kino Kunstmuseum in Berne will show Our School on Fri, Nov 2 at 6:30pm, Sat, Nov 3 at 6pm (followed by Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma), Sun, Nov 4 at 4:30pm (also followed by Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma), as well as Wed, Nov 7 at 6:30pm
• Cinéma Rex in Aubonne will screen Our School on Mon, Nov 12 at 8:30pm 
• Finally, we're returning to the Carouge Cinéma Bio 72 in Geneva, where the film ran for seven consecutive weeks this spring, for an educational screening with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma on Tues, Nov 13, at 11am
  

If you cannot catch Miruna Coca-Cozma doing a Q&A this fall, you can take a look at her interviews in Les Quotidiennes - Miruna Coca-Cozma filme le reve entrave d'une école pour enfants Roms - or listen to the hour-long radio show featuring her on Radio RTS - Un documentaire sur les enfants roms.

Our School on Tour in Romania

We're finally coming to a broad audience in eight cities in Romania! Over the next month, Our School will be touring Romania with Zilele Filmului Românesc, a caravan of the best Romanian documentaries organized by Voodoo Films, the distribution company started by Romanian Palme d'Or-winning director Cristian Mungiu to bring Romanian films to under-served regions of the country. 

Our School be screening in Ploieşti, Botoşani, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Piteşti, Baia Mare, and Bucharest between May 23 and June 29, alongside two other beautiful Romanian films: Dieter Auner's Off the Beaten Track and Anca Damian's Crulic. You can find a complete schedule of screenings here. 

Additionally, we'll have several screenings in Cluj through EducaTIFF, the film education program of the Transylvania International Film Festival, before and during the festival itself. More details coming up here. 

And we will screen in Timișoara, also in early June, through the traveling events of the Astra Film Festival.

Last, but not least, we will be back in Bucharest on June 10, in a special screening at fabulous International Romani Art Festival!

We will update all screening times and locations under the UPCOMING SCREENINGS on the right of this blog post, as the details become public.

Swiss Theatrical Release of Our School

Our School's French-language festival poster

We're thrilled to announce the theatrical release of Our School in Switzerland, beginning with March 14th, 2012, at Cinéma BIO in Geneva and Zinéma in Laussane. Miruna Coca-Cozma will be present to launch the film and do Q&As - she will be in Geneva on March 14th and in Laussane on March 15th.

Update: As of early May, Our School has already had a seven-week run in Suisse Romande, and has been extended through May 8 at Cinema Bio in Geneva.