[ThisWeek] The Boys of Baraka and summer job opening at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...

The Boys of Baraka (R)
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, June 1, 2 & 3
7:00 PM
Sunday, June 4
4:50 & 7:00 PM
$5/adult
KFS pass accepted for Sunday movies
(See Review below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy-

The World¹s Fastest Indian (PG-13)
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, June 8, 9 & 10
7:00 PM
Sunday, June 11
4:05 & 7:00 PM
$5/adult, $2/child 12 or younger
KFS pass accepted for Sunday movies
* * *

SUMMER JOB AVAILABLE AT THE KENWORTHY

Work at the Kenworthy this summer & get into movies FREE!
We¹re looking for someone to sell concessions & tickets & perform other
tasks.

The successful applicant will be outgoing and friendly, have an eye for
detail & cash handling experience.  You must a high school graduate, at
least 18 years old, able to lift & carry 60 lbs., and available to work
Wednesdays, nights, & weekends.

Starting pay is $6.50 - $7.00 per hour depending on experience.

Send resume, letter of interest, and names & phone numbers of three
references to:
Julie Ketchum, KPAC, P.O. Box 8126, Moscow, ID 83843 or via e-mail to
KPAC at moscow.com.

Application deadline: June 2, 2006
* * *

Take a seat!  We mean that literally.  The Kenworthy is offering you the
opportunity to purchase one of a limited number of theater chairs in the
main auditorium.  Your gift will entitle you to an engraved, brass name
plate mounted on the back of the seat of your choice (based upon
availability).  One individual or business name per seat, please.

This naming opportunity, back by popular demand, is available for a donation
of $500 per chair.  You may purchase a chair in two installments of $250
over two years, or in three installments of $200 over three years.

Your gift will assist with the ongoing operation and renovation of the
Kenworthy Theater and fulfillment of our mission to be Moscow's premiere,
historic, downtown, community performing arts venue and cinematic art house.

For information about the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, call Julie
Ketchum, Executive Director, at 208-882-4127.
* * *

Also in June at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...

Dreamer (PG)
June 14, 1:00 PM

Friends With Money (R)
June 15-17, 7:00 PM
June 18, 4:45 & 7:00 PM

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (PG)
June 21, 1:00 PM

Thank You For Smoking (R)
June 22-24, 7:00 PM
June 25, 4:45 & 7:00 PM

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (G)
June 28, 1:00 PM

Coming in July: Hoot; Nanny McPhee; Ice Age: The Meltdown

Regular movie prices:  $5/adult, $2/child 12 or younger
Wednesday matinee prices: $4/adult, $1/child 12 or younger
KFS series pass prices:  $30/10 films, $75/30 films.  KFS pass good only for
Sunday movies.

For more information on movies, events, rental rates, and/or to download a
schedule, visit our website at www.kenworthy.org
* * *

This week¹s review-

The Boys of Baraka

Documentary
Produced and directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
This film is not rated-- Advisory: Contains some raw language and deals with
troubling issues. 
Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.


As reviewed by Stephen Holden writing for the New York Times

"The Boys of Baraka" gives a poignant human face to an alarming statistic:
76 percent of black male students in Baltimore city schools do not graduate
from high school. This documentary tells you why. A toxic poor-neighborhood
environment destroys hope and undermines self-esteem.

In this experimental program 20 "at risk" 12- and 13-year-old black male
students are transported 10,000 miles to the Baraka School in rural Kenya.
Founded in 1996 on a 150-acre ranch where there is no television or
full-time electricity, it offers academic instruction and strict but gentle
discipline in an environment where giraffes and zebras roam. Children who
complete the two-year program have a high success rate when applying for
entrance at the city's most competitive high schools.

Early in the film, a straight-talking recruiter for the school tells an
assembly of prospective students that their futures point to one of three
options: an orange jumpsuit and "nice bracelets" (prison), a black suit and
a brown box (an early death) or a black cap and gown and a diploma. Asked
what would become of her two sons, Richard and Romesh, if one were accepted
and the other not, their mother bluntly declares that one would become a
king and the other a killer. (Both are accepted.)

"The Boys of Baraka" follows four of the students chosen in 2002, during
their first year away from home. In addition to Richard and Romesh, we meet
Devon, who is musically inclined and dreams of becoming a preacher, and
Montrey, a troublemaker who hopes for a career in science.

As the film follows a month-by-month chronology, the boys visibly flourish.
Romesh, who initially tries to run away, stays and makes the honor roll.
Montrey learns to control his temper. Richard, who reads at second-grade
level when he arrives, composes and recites a poem, "I Will Survive," which
describes his new-found optimism. The boys play soccer and climb to the top
of nearby Mount Kenya. They meet Africans and marvel at their sense of
unity.

The movie seems headed in a predictably inspirational direction until the
boys return to Baltimore for their summer vacation and encounter the old
stresses and temptations. Then sad news arrives. Because of regional
politics and threats to its security, the Kenya school must suspend
operation. Both the students and the families are crushed and angry. One
father bitterly observes that his son has a better chance of being killed on
a Baltimore street corner than in a terrorist attack in Africa. A question
is asked but never answered: why can't the program be relocated closer to
Baltimore?

As the movie follows the four into the future and they deal with their
disappointment and try to make the best of the year they had, the filmmakers
seem as frustrated as the subjects. But the movie still manages to come up
with a conditional happy ending.

The film's message is clear and pointed: If you take the boy out of the poor
neighborhood, you stand a good chance of taking the despair and hopelessness
of the poor neighborhood out of the boy.


As reviewed by Walter Addiego writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

This is a gripping documentary look at four Baltimore youngsters sent to a
school in rural Kenya that specializes in dealing with troubled American
boys from the inner city.

The nearest town is 20 miles away, and the kids can see wildlife from the
school's 150-acre compound. The boys play soccer, fool around with hedgehogs
and frogs, and get plenty of fresh air and exercise. They also blossom
academically. One formerly indifferent student makes the honor roll; another
composes an optimistic poem. We see the boys' pride in their
accomplishments, and, touchingly, the joyous and tearful reactions of the
folks back home. 

More details about the Baraka school would be helpful. For instance, most of
the staff appears to be white. Why? And we never get a clear picture of who
is behind the school or how it's funded. The unanswered questions are
frustrating. 

The film ends on a sad note because of larger events in Kenya -- some
realities transcend all the good intentions in the world. And we see that
not every youngster is up to the challenge. But the lesson is unmistakable.
Why do disadvantaged American kids have to go to Africa to get a semblance
of a decent education?


As reviewed by Roger Ebert writing for the Chicago Sun-Times

Here is a movie that makes you want to do something. Cry, or write a check,
or howl with rage. It tells the story of 20 "high risk" inner-city black
boys, 12 and 13 years old, who are lifted out of the Baltimore school system
and given scholarships to the Baraka School. Where is Baraka? In Kenya, in
an area poorer than the ghettos of Baltimore. There's not even full-time
electricity. Here they are told, "Fail one class and you go home."

Two boys who fight are taken on a hike to "base camp," given a two-man tent,
and told to spend the night. How do you assemble the tent? They have to
figure it out together. One boy refuses to do it. Fine, says the teacher.
Sleep outdoors. We see a process at work. The tent gets assembled. The
fights stop.

All of the teachers we see at Baraka School are white; it is not an African
school but one run by American volunteers who chose Kenya, among other
reasons, because it is cheap, and because "boys can live the lives of boys"
-- running around, swimming in streams, seeing wild animals, climbing Mount
Kenya. In Baltimore, it can be dangerous for them to go outside, and they
stare at television. The boys thrive at Baraka. Their behavior is
transformed, their grades improve and they think differently of themselves.

Then everything changes. Because of terrorist attacks and the closure of the
American embassy in Nairobi, Baraka has to shut down at the end of the first
of the boys' two years. In Baltimore that summer, they're told they won't be
going back. One review of the film actually complains that the movie is
"unsatisfactory" because unforeseen events prevented the filmmakers from
"completing" their story. Oh, it's compete, all right. "All our lives gonna
be bad now," one tearful boy says. One parent on the terrorist threat:
"They're more likely to be killed right here in Baltimore." Another parent:
"If you send them to Baltimore, you're sending them to jail."

Some of the boys seem to return to the same aimless lives they were leading
before. But a boy named Devon is elected president of his ninth-grade class,
and we see him already beginning his life's work, as a preacher. Montrey,
the boy with the worst attitude and behavior problems, is so changed by one
year at Baraka that at the end of the next year, he gets the top score in
all of Maryland on a math test, and is admitted to the most competitive high
school in Baltimore. He speaks at the close of the film: "People think we
ain't got a future. I'm gonna make a difference. I'm gonna be on the map."

In a simple, direct way, without a lot of filmmaking sophistication, "The
Boys of Baraka" makes this argument: Many of our schools are failing, and
many of our neighborhoods are poisonous. Individual parents and children
make an effort, but the system is against them, and hope is hard to find.
One of the mothers in the film goes back to drugs and is jailed during the
Baraka year. Grandparents realistically look at the city and see a death
sentence for their grandchildren. The recruiter for Baraka says, "Nothing's
out there for them other than a new jail they just built." These children
are born into a version of genocide.

If I were in charge of everything, and I certainly should be, I would divert
billions of dollars into an emergency fund for our schools. I would reduce
classroom size to 15 or 20. I would double teachers' salaries. I would fund
boarding schools to remove the most endangered children from environments
that are killing them. I would be generous and vigilant about school lunch
programs and medical care for kids. I would install monitors on the
television sets in the homes of these children, and pay a cash bonus for
every hour they are not turned on during homework time. I would open a
storefront library on every other block. And although there are two sides to
the question, I would consider legalizing drugs; illegal drugs are
destroying countless lives, and legalizing them would destroy the profit
motive for promoting and selling them.

All of this would cost a fraction of -- well, of the cost of the government
undertaking of your choice. It would pay dividends in one generation. There
is something wrong when, as our own officials say, we depend on immigration
to supply us with scientists. A kid like Montrey, who goes from a standing
start to the top state score in math in one year, can supply us with an
invaluable resource, but he has to be given a chance. We look at TV and see
stories of drugs and gang bangers and despair, and we assume the victims
bring it on themselves. If we had been born and raised as they were, in
areas abandoned by hope and opportunity, the odds are good we would be dead,
or watching TV in prison.


Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart
* * *

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
208-882-4127
Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
logging onto our website
http://www.kenworthy.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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