The Boys of Baraka
by Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Darius Chambers, Devon Brown, Richard KeyserDirector: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Marco Franzoni
Cinematographer: Tony Hardmon
Producer: Heidi Ewing
Producer: Rachel Grady
Editor: Enat Sidi
Producer: Nikos Katsaounis
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 84 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-07-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: IMAGE/THINKFILMS
Movie Reviews of The Boys of Baraka
Movie Review: It makes you think..... and it makes you want to cry.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent documentary in regards to multicultural, poverty, and urban/inner-city issues. This is a great depiction of how a person's environment can strongly affect their future success. Basically, this movie is about a group of African American boys who live in the worst parts of Baltimore living in crime and drug infested neighborhoods and are given a chance to go to a boarding school in Africa. Its amazing how the film shows the change in all of the boys throughout the movie.
At the start while they're living in Baltimore, many of them are very aggressive and have very low self-esteem covered up by acting out behavior. Their role models in their neighborhoods are mostly drug dealers and gang members. The movie stated that 76% of African American youth in Baltimore never graduate high school. By watching this film, one can see why. Their schools are in chaos due to the fact that what behavior works in the Ghetto doesnt work in the education system. Their enviroments at home are not preparing them for educational success. Also, the government ignores the problems of the inner-city schools.
About the boys evolving... after about four months in the new school away from their bad neighborhoods, any viewer can see the positive change in them. They're respectful, are less aggressive, believe in themselves, and are just..... wonderful boys. They seem like the boy next door. Someone who can become anything and someone who you would trust to take any where. It makes you feel good to see that positive transformation in these deserving youth that have not been given a fair chance in our society. It makes you want to cry... but for good reasons.
After the boys finish their first year at the school, the boys return home for Summer break. They all come home in good spirits and dont seem to instantly fall back into the negativity.... their whole lives have become... the Baraka school. Their happy to see family... however you can look in their eyes and see that they miss that safe and positive environment of Africa. There was one scene in which one of the boys was sitting on the stairs of his house surrounded by his neighborhood. The people around him were cussing, becoming aggressive and you could see in his eyes the fear and uncomfortablness. You can also see in his eyes that he now knows that the whole world isnt like that..... thanks to the Baraka school. He now knows the world does offer better and has better chances.
Now the heart-breaking part..... due to overseas violence after 9-11 the Baraka school has to close down and the kids are abandoned by the system... again. I wont tell you what happens after that-- you'll have to watch the movie to see. I hate reviewers who tell everything about a movie. But I'll say one thing.... it will make you want to cry. Excellent documentary!!!!
Summary of The Boys of Baraka
Don't miss the true coming-of-age story that follows a group of extraordinary 12-year-old boys from the most violent ghettos of Baltimore to an experimental boarding school 10,000 miles away in rural Kenya. An emotionally explosive journey shot over three years, the film zeroes in on a group of brave kids who are willing to cross the ocean to chase an opportunity - boys with a fierce determination to fight the label of "throw-away."This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
If everyone in high government office saw The Boys of Baraka, who knows what kind of positive change it might inspire? From this remarkable documentary about hope and second chances, the message is clear: The poorest, most violent, undesirable neighborhoods in America are a breeding ground for hopelessness and despair, and there's a solution if only we'd give it a good fighting chance. The scene is Baltimore, Maryland, in 2002, where 76% of all African American boys living in the inner-city ghetto will never earn a high school diploma. As one adult tells the kids at a Baltimore school, they have three choices: jail, an early death, or graduating high school--and you know she's telling the cold, hard truth. That's when we learn of the Baraka School in Kenya, East Africa, where 20 African American boys (ages 12 and 13) are chosen each year to enter a transformative two-year course of schooling, away from their families in Baltimore. The purpose of the school, in part, is to demonstrate that the toxic environment of Baltimore, and its negative impact on the self-esteem of ghetto residents, can be reversed by removing these boys to Baraka, where a strict regimen of classes and responsibilities has an immediate, if not always permanent, beneficial effect.
We follow several boys on this fascinating journey toward growth and renewal. Devon is an aspiring preacher with musical talent; Montrey is a troublemaker with a bad attitude, who dreams of a career in science; brother Richard and Romesh are both accepted into Baraka, and despite setbacks both flourish in the program. Codirectors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady capture their gradual awakening to a new way of living and a new outlook on life, and then comes bad news: Due to security concerns and regional politics, the Baraka program is suspended, and the boys must return to the bleakness of Baltimore. Have they changed for good? Will they find a way to earn their diplomas and have hope for their futures? The Boys of Baraka offers no easy answers, but in showing us a glimmer of hope against all odds, the film gains depth and power with a conditional happy ending. Uncertainty remains, but so does a palpable sense of achievement and self-improvement that could, on a grander scale of government and societal support, lead to a positive revolution in our school system, which currently offers a depressing shortage of options for our most underprivileged citizens. Without forcing its uplifting message, this exceptional documentary offers proof of a better way, if only enough people would step up and support it. --Jeff Shannon
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