Chain Camera

Director: Kirby Dick

Chain Camera (2001)
Starring: Ethan Adagio, Silva Arzunyan, Leo Diaz, Timothy Docherty, and Amy Hattemer
Director: Kirby Dick

Synopsis:
Ten students at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles were given video cameras to film their lives. There were no limitations on what they could shoot. After one week, the cameras were given to ten new students, who filmed their lives for a week, then handed the cameras on. Like chain letters, these cameras were passed from student to student for an entire year. (FilmNoir Post Productions)

Quotes from the Class Discussion Forum:

"From bulimia and self-mutilation to parental abuse and abandonment, from racism to homophobia and alcoholism to depression: with its sixteen short snapshots, Chain Camera captured all this and more, presenting a pretty bleak picture of coming of age at the turn of the century. "

-lisame

"I appreciate Chain Camera’ timely screening on the heels of Clueless, and the irony that it was filmed only two miles away. The two movies present radically different depictions of “normal” teenage life in Los Angeles, one formatted to fit the escapist teen genre and the other a raw, realistic documentary. Whereas Clueless portrays a high school sans racial tension or serious underlying problems with family, economic situation, alcoholism, disability, and sexuality, Chain Camera reveals that these issues face kids at John Marshall high school everyday of their lives. How many of the kids literally broke down into tears while telling their stories? I think that it is an interesting point to contrast the story of Stephanie with that of Cher. Both live alone with their fathers, having to “take care” of them, these big grown men, though there is the huge qualitative difference that Stephanie and her father live in near-poverty and Stephanie’s responsibilities run something more along the lines of helping put food on the table. The interaction between this father and daughter comes across as so much more genuine and their relationship as so much stronger than Cher and her father’s. "

-srinkus

(go to the offical Chain Camera website)