BROADCAST, JULY 2017
"American high schools have been depicted in hundreds of movies and TV shows - but not many look like South Carolina’s Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School.
Swan Films’ four-strong crew spent eight months at the 99% African-American, high poverty index and ‘at-risk’ school, documenting new principal Stephen Peters’ attempt to turn around its reputation. It was time well spent.
BBC Three’s American High School was an exceptional doc series that delivered perfectly for its audience. If
viewers had any preconceived ideas about life in a US school, they were quickly dispelled.
The six-part series - “uplifting and heart-breaking in equal measure”, according to one judge - was a huge
reputational success for the channel, and landed a BBC One repeat.
It focused on the stories of 17 and 18 year-olds as they came to the end of their school lives and contemplated
their futures. Filming for a full school year meant that life-changing events, from teen births to expulsions, were captured.
There was no commentary, with actuality and master interviews combining to give the series an intimate, immediate feel. In an exceptional year for BBC Three docs, this series was the standout."
THE GUARDIAN, NOVEMBER 2016 BY JULIA RAESIDE
"A high-stakes, high-school documentary series of quiet distinction."
"It feels as if the producers have played the long game here, spending time with their subjects over months, gaining their trust, putting them at ease."
"The relationships are incredibly touching but never schmaltzy. The show is a delicately filmed and edited thing, which keeps its distance and allows the emotion to speak for itself. Every participant is treated with careful, considered respect and the skill of the filmmaker (Marcus Plowright) is in drawing real feeling from their situations without resorting to head-patting sympathy. This is helped by Alexander Parsons’ impressive score, mixing tinges of the music the kids listen to with his own emotive arrangements. Six episodes of hope, just when it’s needed."
"Watching this heart-tugging series in the context of Donald Trump’s impending presidency raises the stakes horribly. If some of these students started out at an arguable disadvantage, you’re left to wonder what hope there is of social mobility in a country run by someone born to privilege with no understanding of struggle."
THE OBSERVER, OCTOBER 2016
"A moving look at both the US public school system and what it means to be young and black in America."