UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival will screen a Penn State faculty member's critically acclaimed documentary in a special event that includes a free reception featuring music by FeminAfrika and food by Chef Rose Jamaican Cuisine.
The festival's official screening of award-winning filmmaker Boaz Dvir’s “Class of Her Own” will take place at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 13 at the 1,106-seat, state-of-the-art Lauderhill Performing Arts Center, in Lauderhill, Florida. The event, which will include a Q&A with Dvir, is open to the public and free to educators and students.
“I greatly appreciate the festival making the event free to teachers and students, as well as celebrating educators with a reception that includes delicious food and fun music,” said Dvir, an associate professor journalism in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications whose films have aired and streamed on PBS, The New York Times, Hulu and other major platforms. “It is an appropriate gesture to the documentary’s protagonist, Gloria Jean Merriex, an elementary school teacher who infused her lessons with music and movement and often cooked meals for her vulnerable students.”
“Class of Her Own” focuses on Merriex’s journey as she rebelled after Duval Elementary in East Gainesville, Florida, failed the state standardized test. In one year she led to the school from an "F" to an "A" on that assessment.
The film shows Merriex rewriting the curriculum to meet her students where they were and using hip hop, dance and call-and-response to teach reading and math. Referencing the popular ABC sitcom, Peter Greene of Forbes has described the 86-minute documentary as a “real-life mirror of Abbott Elementary.”
The documentary has screened as an official selection in several film festivals around the country, including Baltimore, Charlotte, Houston and Orlando. The film was named a finalist four times and a semifinalist once. It also earned a honorable mention. A handful of universities — Eastern Michigan, Michigan State and North Texas — have screened the film as well. It is available on major online platforms.
In his review of “Class of Her Own,” film critic Dan Domench wrote, “The director, Boaz Dvir, saw something larger happening to Merriex and brought that truth forward.”