Alliance for Independent Motion Media: Accelerating America
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AIMM Production Partners:
Accelerating America
Length: 88 min.
Filmmaker:
Timothy Hotchner
Official Web Site
http://www.acceleratingamerica.com
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Hide InstructionsAccelerating America
A quadriplegic principal has one year to turn his inner-city kids' lives around.
Film Description
ACCELERATING AMERICA is the story of UCAP, the revolutionary Rhode Island inner-city middle-school led by inspiring principal Robert DeBlois. Despite being a quadriplegic, he tirelessly devotes himself to saving 130 failed students, offering them a chance to catch-up to their peers by completing two grades in one year.
The film focuses on Mr. DeBlois, his staff and three students, America, Jasmine and Jason. Over the course of a riveting make-or-break year, these students are challenged to overcome chaotic home lives and troubled pasts to create a better future for themselves.
News:
The film is currently in post-production.Biographies
ACCELERATING AMERICA is writer/director Timothy Hotchner’s first feature-length documentary. For this film, Hotchner moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent over a year following the remarkable journey of a quadriplegic principal, his staff and three of his students: America, Yazmine and Jason.
Over the past ten years, Hotchner has directed and produced many short documentaries, including VOICES FROM THE HOLE IN THE WALL, in which a young girl finds solace despite battling cancer. The film won the World Gold Medal at the New York Festivals. Portions of the documentary have aired on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Jane Pauley Show, CBS Sunday Morning, and Larry King Live.
Hotchner has also been a cameraman on THE PRICE OF SUGAR, a feature-length documentary about Haitian sugar cane workers in the Dominican Republic, HEARNE, TEXAS, a short film on the drug war and racial profiling in small-town America, and BEHIND THE SCENES OF EMPIRE FALLS, for HBO.
Timothy has been a contributing producer for Disney, A&E Biography, Bravo Profiles, the Fox Movie Channel, and the documentary TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE.
He was born in New York City and is a graduate of Brown University, where he studied Education, English and Theater.