PARENT/TEACHER

A dedicated group of Public School Educators questions the value of their life’s work, as they mentor a naïve new teacher, and fight for their students’ futures during parent-teacher conference week.

Artist’s Statement by Writer/Director/Producer Angela Garcia Combs:

Parent/Teacher is an unflinching narrative about the disparaged and misunderstood teachers on the front lines of education, and the students and families of many backgrounds whom they serve. This feature will take us inside an urban public school to depict what it is really like to send your children there, to show what teachers are really doing and how kids are really behaving in the system of public education. The crisis, conflict and drama of this film will come from unanticipated sources and strike a deep chord. Parent/Teacher is a gauntlet with which I aim to provoke a discourse on this most important foundation of our society.

The gritty, empathic, honest, humorous slice-of-life tone of Parent/Teacher is based on my own experience with public schools (as both student and parent) and many months of interviews with public school teachers all over the United States. As the recollections of the dedicated educators streamed in, I found themes in their stories that were repeated across cultural and economic divides and I have amalgamated those motifs into the situations that face our characters in Parent/Teacher. I seek to illuminate the bravery, fatigue and thwarted dreams of our inspired teachers as they nurture the young lives and longings of the children in their charge. The story is set in Los Angeles, where I am familiar with the cultural cross section and where these characters would organically exist in one place together. Parent/Teacher observes how different personalities, teaching styles and cultures interact, conflict and coincide in the shared struggle to keep the students’ best interests at the forefront in an imperfect system.

Dear President Carter, Published in the Huffington Post

A few years ago, a dear friend left us too soon after succumbing to cancer. I resisted articulating my love and admiration to her as I witnessed an unseemly parade of tearful remembrances at her bedside. I know now that it was a mistake not to have found a way to convey to her how her art and being had influenced and inspired me. Recent news of your diagnosis, Mr. President, has reminded me of those regrets, so now I want to send my good wishes for your health, and tell you how much you have inspired and guided me. I cannot possibly convey the entire story in a thousand words, but here is one tiny thread.

Why "Selma" Got It Right, Published in the Huffington Post

There is much hoopla over Ava DuVernay's buzzed-about film Selma regarding historical "inaccuracies" in the portrayal of President Johnson. In a TIME magazine article, David Kaiser takes us through a narrative presupposing the president's intentions, while admitting, "LBJ never let anyone know what he planned to do until it was absolutely necessary." This seems an admission that the dramatized conversations in Selma that have become the subject of this debate are not out of place and are therefore free territory for the imaginations of a gifted filmmaker like DuVernay.

"Karen Black: Perfectly Misunderstood," Published in the Huffington Post

Karen Black died last week and she was my unlikely friend.

I say so because all the conventional markers could not have predicted it. I am an atheist, a feminist and a film director and Karen was none of those things. I plan fastidiously with storyboards and shotlists in pursuit of the dramatic truth. Karen sought the same truth, but through jarringly different means.