The first Sundance Film Festival sale has been made, and it’s entirely inspiring news for both the film industry and the country at large. Paramount has snapped up a documentary about the American public school system to be released under its Paramount Vantage imprint, which also released An Inconvenient Truth, the last documentary effort from the same team.
According to The Wrap, “The studio acquired worldwide distribution rights for Waiting for Superman, a documentary from the makers of An Inconvenient Truth that looks at the public education crisis in the United States, it announced on Thursday.” The film is Directed by Davis Guggenheim and features interviews with Bill Gates, who supported the film with the Microsoft Foundation as well as went to Sundance to promote it; Washington, D.C., Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee; Knowledge is Power Program Founders David Levin and Mike Feinberg; Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, and other educational experts.
R&B singer John Legend recorded a new song called “Shine” to roll over the film’s closing credits. He also traveled to Park City this past week to promote the film an encourage a studio to pick it up for wider distribution.
According to The Wrap, “The film chronicles efforts by innovative educators to turn around failing systems in cities like Washington, D.C., Harlem and Los Angeles.” We haven’t heard much about education reform since the days of No Child Left Behind (these days, it’s all about health care, bonuses, and bailouts), so it will be very interesting to see if this documentary has the same powerful Inconvenient Truth-like effect on the population as its predecessor. It has the backing of a powerful studio, a major R&B influencer, and the head of Microsoft. Public schools, get ready for your close-ups.
Photo by Sry86 via Wikimedia Commons