Film Forum: Freedom Writers
An idealistic high school English teacher (Hillary Swank) quickly learns that her students have more to worry about than homework -- her students go home everyday to gunfire, gangs, drugs, and a host of other difficult situations.
She challenges her students to read The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Saravejo and to write in their own diaries about the violence, discrimination, and hatred that is part of their everyday lives. The film is based on The Freedom Writers Diary, the 1999 non-fiction book written by students at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California and their teacher Erin Gruwell.
2007. 123 minutes. PG-13. Film begins at 6:30pm. Poetry performance at 6pm with Zaria Suggs, 18-year-old student-poet and SDSU college freshman, who will perform pieces of her poetry before the film.