The Other Kids (USA) Dir: Chris Brown , 95 min
A raw, intimate look into the struggles of six small-town teens on the verge of high school graduation, THE OTHER KIDS is a bold and original hybrid of fiction & non-fiction in which real teenagers collaborated with director Chris Brown to tell their own gripping, personal stories.
Director's Statement:
WHAT IS A FICTUMENTARY?“Fictumentary” is a word I made up to describe the process of taking raw materials from real life to create a fictional cinematic universe. Shot without a script, THE OTHER KIDS was fueled by fourteen actors’ real-life struggles, feelings and experiences. BACKGROUNDIncome inequality is the social justice issue of our time. The gap between rich and poor in America has never been wider. For the (mostly) working class teens of THE OTHER KIDS, this is a very real crisis; higher education has been driven further from reach, college enrollment has severely declined, tuitions have skyrocketed, loans are harder to secure and employment opportunities have become dangerously scarce. Without access to higher education, the chances for survival (much less economic mobility) are catastrophically limited. In Tuolumne County, CA where the film was shot, income inequality impacts every corner of life; the rate of suicide among teens in the county is three times the national average, a statistic that tracks horrifyingly closely with other measures of economic and social injustice. Against this backdrop, THE OTHER KIDS takes a raw, intimate look into the most crucial decisions teens make about their lives. GOALMy goal was to make a film about thesmall townteen experience as it really exists today, versus what I (as a middle-aged, urban male) might assume that experience to be. The only way to do that was to give real teenagers the dominant voice in the storytelling process.PROCESSAfter a lengthy and exhaustive casting processthroughout Tuolumne County, I chose the six dynamic teens who becamethe leads in the film. What was I looking for in choosingactors? A high level of acting talent was crucial, but more than that I was seeking people with fire in their bellies –passionate, intelligent, adventurous kids who were willing to deal openly with the struggles in their lives, and who weren't afraid to climb aboard a project whose outcome and duration werecompletely unknown.Together we spent the next year and a half exploring their liveson camerathrough alter egos that we constructedbit-by-bit. All along, I encouraged the kids to use as much or as little of their own experiences as they felt useful. Because the film was unscripted, eachshooting day was part of an ongoing process of emotional discovery for everyone involved –from the cast and crew to their families, friends, employers and teachers. The results were usuallyunplannedandoftensurprising.IMPACT/EMPOWERMENTThe impact of this production upon the students and community of Tuolumne County was something I hadn't at all foreseen.The production seems to have had atransformativeand empoweringeffect on nearly everyone involved.Having dealt with their personal struggles in a supportive environment over an extended period, the teensgradually grew more confident and more articulate about their thoughts, feelings and goals. For this reason alone, this has been without a doubtthe happiest and most meaningful filmmaking experience of my life.
