The first class of Dalit ('untouchable') caste students, in India's history, undertake the national ISC high school graduation exams as a means to a brighter future for themselves, and an opportunity to break their families out of the destitution they've been entrenched in for generations.
The winner of last year's Hot Docs Audience Award is a straight-up inspirational film, demonstrating the power of education to change lives. Shot by Vancouver's Madeleine Grant and a hometown crew over the course of five years, the film follows the first graduating class of the Shanti Bhavan residential school in Bangalore, India.
The school, started by Dr. Abraham George in 1997, is designed to help break the poverty cycle of India's most disadvantaged group, the Dalit (untouchables) through education. Grant's film focuses on a group of students in the weeks leading up to the national certificate exams that will allow them enter India's colleges and universities.
Concurrently, we follow the financial pressures on George, who may not be able to afford to send his own kids to college, and the school's principal, Lalita Law, whose family demands are taking her away from the school.
The idealism, the tears and the celebrations are all in the open here, and if at times the film comes across like a particular heart-tugging fundraiser, it's for an impeccably good cause.
Liam Lacey