Fiction: This is Us Trying
Documentary: Behind the Lens
The films This is Us Trying and Behind the Lens were made in collaboration with a team of Penn students and four sophomores from Parkway Center City Middle College, through Community Youth Filmmaking Course where our professor Amit Das fostered a long term relationship in collaboration with the Netter Center with Philadelphia Public Schools Television (PSTV). My team (Jen Freed, Diana Lalata, Yining Lei) spent several hours a week teaching the youth how to write, direct, and film. The synopsis of each film is below.
This is Us Trying
This film seeks to capture a friend group’s story, exploring their lived experiences, cultures, daily struggles, and races as Parkway Center City Middle College students. The short begins with a flashback depicting how the friend group came together at Summer Bridge, their school’s orientation program. The students are fixated on the upcoming Accuplacer Exam, which determines their ability to stay at Parkway, a prestigious Philadelphia high school. Throughout the film, the four young women wrestle with balancing their academics, social, and familial worlds while preparing for the daily hardships that unite and separate them. As they learn to reconcile the exam’s impact on their future dreams, they also become a support system for each other.
Course: Community Youth Filmmaking
Medium: Due to this being a filmmaking class, stating the obvious, these projects culminated in films.
Behind the Lens
This short documentary captures the profound impact creative outlets have on students’ lives. At Parkway Center City Middle College, Mr. Lajoie fosters a nurturing and creative environment for artistic expression and future dreaming. Through intimate interviews with Mr. Lajoie, his students, and the Penn & PSTV community youth filmmaking teams, the documentary explores how the art room (or better yet, the 5th floor of Parkway) has become a sanctuary--a space in which youths’ self-expression is encouraged, confidence is built, and imagination is celebrated. In spaces like the art room, collaboration and creation shift youth voices from the margins to the center of the school community, giving young people agency. Youth reimagine their futures in the art room, and alongside their teacher, they can dream together, making the promise of a better tomorrow more visible.