Features

If Michael Moore represents the modern face of documentary filmmaking—in which the filmmaker doubles as star of the show, dominating the onscreen time with questions and commentary—then Smith College Master of Social Work candidate Lindsay Duckles must be the old school, where the filmmaker gets out of the way and lets the subject tell the story. 

I like the old school better. 

Duckles’ low-budget, half-hour, iBook-created documentary of a year-long student-organized struggle at Berkeley Alternative High School is part of the long tradition of Berkeley activist history because it concentrates on the most important element—the activists themselves. The film, Berkeley Alternative High School—The Struggle for Social Justice, debuted Thursday night at Berkeley Alternative High. 

The film, which was pared down from 40 hours of filmed footage, is broken into three parts that show a guiding storyteller’s hand that never gets in the way of the story. 

The first part are close-up interviews with Berkeley Alternative students, who talk of their feelings after learning that they were being excluded from Berkeley High extracurricular activities. 

“I didn’t understand,” the first student says, a thoughtful and articulate, dark-skinned African-American girl. “I was disappointed.” Her face fills the screen, and it is impossible to ignore, or forget. 

Later comes an angry male student who speaks of the rumor—later denied by BUSD Superintendent Michele Lawrence—that BAHS graduating seniors were going to be denied permission to participate in graduation at the Greek Theater with their BHS counterparts. 

“I want that,” he says, emphatically. “I want my family to see me walk across the stage and get my diploma. If I have to spend all year to fight that, I don’t care.” 

While another student talks of the Greek Theater graduation being “the real experience, and I want to experience it all,” the film shows still photos of past Greek Theater graduation exercises. 

The second part of the film shows a 2004 BAHS meeting, in which angry parents and teachers debate the meaning of the exclusion. 

But the highlight is shots from a pivotal January town hall meeting at the Alternative High, in which both parents and teachers confronted Superintendent Lawrence, and the superintendent tried to explain the district’s position and work out a compromise. 

The film ends with a speech at that meeting by outgoing BAHS principal Alex Palau, in which he outlined two historic visions for Berkeley Alternative, one which saw it as a dumping ground for problem students, another which viewed it as a small but equal partner in the city’s education mission. 

Following the meeting, talks between BAHS, BHS, and BUSD representatives resulted in an agreement that BAHS would continue to participate in all BHS extracurricular activities. 

Duckles, who grew up in Sonoma County and has family ties in Berkeley, appears to have lucked out in documenting the BAHS dispute. While interning at the Berkeley Mental Health Department and doing video therapy with BAHS students last fall, she approached BAHS Guidance Counselor Mercedes Sanders about a possible subject for a documentary to be turned in as a college project. 

Sanders, who had already been working with BAHS students about the problems with BHS, got Duckles involved early enough so that she was able to document the struggle from the beginning to end. The result is a rare piece of activist history: a documentary that does not rely upon retrospective, but unveils the events as they unfold. 

While Duckles has to return to Smith College this month, she is hoping that BAHS students will photograph their participation in the BHS graduation exercises, and that those photos will eventually be included in a final version of the film as its triumphant conclusion. 

Meanwhile, besides turning it in as a college project, Duckles said she is hoping to distribute the film to a wider audience, including possible showing by Berkeley Community Media and surrounding school districts. 

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