Approaching the Elephant
Amanda Rose Wilder
| USA
| 2014
| 89 min
A school with no rules sounds like every kid’s dream. The Teddy McArdle Free School in small town New Jersey is experimenting with this very idea – populated with children who don’t fit into more traditional establishments, the school allows anyone to call a meeting, rules are made by consensus, and classes are not compulsory. Filmmaker Amanda Wilder observes the school in classic observational style over the course of a year. As the year unfolds and the challenges of attempting to establish a new educational ideology become clear, the film forces us all to consider the overarching hypothesis: exactly what should education look like in the 21st Century?
Director Amanda Rose Wilder
Producer Jay Craven, Robert Greene, Amanda Rose Wilder
Premiere Australian Premiere
Section International Competition
Festival Year 2015