Chekhov for Children
Doc • 72 minutes • 2010
DVCam | super 8mm | Betamax • Stereo

SYNOPSIS

Chekhov for Children tells the inspiring story of an ambitious undertaking – the 1979 staging on Broadway of Uncle Vanya by New York City 5th & 6th graders, directed by the celebrated writer Phillip Lopate. Using a wealth of never-before-screened student documentary videos and dramatic super 8mm films from the era, Chekhov for Children explores the interplay between art and life for a dozen friends across 30 years – including the filmmaker.

FILMMAKER STATEMENT

Chekhov for Children poses the question: "Where does one draw the line between experimentation and self-indulgence?” – a quote from Phillip Lopate’s 1979 essay “Chekhov for Children” – on both broadly social and intimately personal levels. The film evokes this question in light of the choices we make about the best models for our nations’ schools, and in the decisions we as individual parents and teachers make for our own children and students on a daily basis. Its final message is that childhood animates our adult lives and it is through the arts that we all connect to this living childhood within us. 


TRAILER

Childhood lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life.... Poets will help us to find this living childhood within us.

                                                               – Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher

Chekhov for Children listed in the indieWIRE Annual Critics Survey 2010 as one of the Best Undistributed Films of the year and scores a Top Ten mention in the Senses of Cinema 2010 World Poll!

Chekhov for Children wins the 2011 Peter C. Rollins Film Award
for Best Documentary from the Popular Culture/American Culture
Association

  This American Gothic, 2008

  Razing Appalachia, 2003

           Whipped, 1998