ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY
Imagine a School...Summerhill
by William Tyler Smith
In 1997, Tony Blair's new labour government took steps to live up to its promise to improve standards in education.
Ironically, this would threaten the existence of an unusual little school in Suffolk called Summerhill...
So begins an extraordinary documentary about an exemplary school in England, in which the students, the staff and a few formidable barristers take on OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) and Tony Blair's Labor Government to fight for its existence and the lifeblood of alternative education throughout the world. It was a fight that not only saved the prestigious institution, but proved the very educational principals on which the school was founded. In the process, some remarkable young people were given a chance to see how they had grown within Summerhill's unique democratic system and an up close lesson in modern government.
Summerhill, the famous coed alternative boarding school, was threatened with closure by the British Labor Government because it refused to compromise its educational and social philosophy. Attendance in classes is voluntary, and children can play all day if they feel like it. The school runs as a free and completely democratic society. Rules are developed and adopted in weekly meetings, in which every member of the school community, from a five-year old child to the headmistress, has an equal vote. At Summerhill, the emotional development of
children comes first, lessons second.
Imagine a documentary...
The filmmakers hand over to 11-year-old students three camcorders, to be shared amongst the community, with the instructions: here are the cameras--now shoot. At first the students don't even know how to work the equipment. Over time they are documenting their daily lives, capturing the life of Summerhill from an unfiltered and authentic child's point of view. Over the next six years, the filmmakers film and interview students, staff and alumni and chronicle the chain of circumstances that end in a most unexpected turn of events.
James, Carman, Misha and Nathan
All my life I've been able to say things to justify my case. Now the
democratic government we live under has taken my choice. I must
speak. James
The film follows a number of students from the ages of eleven to sixteen as they grow up and make important decisions about life and their
education at the same time that they become involved in the legal and
political fight to save their school. We watch them work and play and see
them develop as they take on the increased responsibilities that come with
age and experience in a self-governing community. The film follows the same children who sneak out of their dorms at night and dance to The Spice Girls at the end of term party as they go on to help run the democratic processes of their school, give a press conference at the Houses of Parliament and, finally and triumphantly, turn the high court into an unprecedented and historical Summerhill general meeting to decide whether or not to accept the terms of the British government.
You don't have to learn academically to learn; it's a child's natural instinct
to learn. Carman
Making the film
Fashioned from six years of superb documentary filmmaking and 250 hours of
footage, Imagine a School...Summerhill is an often moving, compelling and
sometimes provocative look at one of the most dramatic events in the history of
the 87 year old Summerhill School.
With little more resources than a dedication to making the documentary and a
passionate interest in the school, director William Tyler Smith--along with the
stunning camerawork of director of photography Julian Hoxter and the brilliant insights and visual finesse of editor Ann Jackman--has created an intellectually stimulating film that captures the spirit and substance of Summerhill. The film is a visually dynamic and vibrant fusion of four different mediums: Betacam SP, S-VHS Video, Super 8 film and still photographs. The children's footage forms the foundation of the piece. Providing a structural framework are interviews with Zoë Neill Readhead, headmistress of the school, various teachers, house parents
and children, as well as Albert Lamb, editor of Neill's book on Summerhill, actors Tom Conti, Orson Bean and Peter Coyote, long-time supporters of Neill, and several well-known Summerhill alumni, including Jake Weber (Medium) and Rebecca DeMornay (Risky Business, ER).
You couldn't try and tell them something about Summerhill because they were too busy going around looking at lessons and asking people how many lessons they went to. Misha
Filmmakers discover a story
As an undergraduate student at Tufts University, William Tyler Smith read A.S. Neill's 1961 signature book Summerhill about his remarkable school in England. The book not only had an enormous impact in the U.S., spurning a generation of alternative schools here, but it had a profound personal effect on Smith because its educational philosophies resonated with his own humanist beliefs.
He then went on to graduate school at UCLA, where he studied filmmaking and met fellow student Julian Hoxter. Ten years after he first read it, Smith stumbled across the book Summerhill again in a bookstore in Los Angeles. He always had the desire to make a film about Summerhill School, and seeing the book again motivated him to go ahead. He felt a strong affinity towards Summerhill and the teachings of A.S. Neill, which had so inspired him as a young student.
With Hoxter now back in England and agreeing to work on the documentary with him, Smith called Summerhill School and got permission to start filming the project. Together they formed a production company, 418 Films, Ltd., and Hoxter secured a sponsor for the film in Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK, where he is a Senior Lecturer in the Media Arts Faculty.
Over the course of the next few years, during summers and infrequent trips to England the rest of the year, the project went as planned, students recording on camcorders and Smith and Hoxter doing their documentary filmmaking. In the third year of filming, the school suddenly came under threat of being shut down by the government, and the filmmakers decided to follow the story to its conclusion, not knowing the outcome of the court case or the shape of the film to come.
The result is Imagine a School...Summerhill, the extraordinary story of the school's true life David and Goliath tale of its struggle against closure by the British government and its dramatic and remarkable final victory in the British courts. The story itself becomes a testimonial to Neill's democratic principles and educational philosophies. "These students are some of the most emotionally healthy, happy and intellectually developed kids I've met," says Smith. "Summerhill and its philosophy of education is, indeed, an appropriate educational model for creating democratic, free-thinking citizens, and should be taken very seriously by the status quo." Imagine a School...Summerhil is the kind of documentary film that could shape and change attitudes about education for a long time to come.
I think more children should have the chance to grow the way that I have grown and learn the way that I have learned. And that is why I'm here today. Nathan
SUMMERHILL SCHOOL
What educational training could have prepared these teenagers who not only showed up with grace, eloquence, and grit but prevailed on the British government?
Meet Summerhill School.
Founded by the educator A.S. Neill, Summerhill School is the world's oldest and most influential democratic free school. The school was established in its present location in the village of Leiston on the northern coast of England in 1927. A.S. Neill began his teaching career in Scotland beside his father but soon felt that traditional teaching methods were too stifling for the children. While a temporary headmaster at Gretna Green School, Neill studied the children's behavior by keeping a diary and noted their natural curiosity. He founded Summerhill School as a free school with non-compulsory lessons in the belief that if you nourished a child's emotions, his enriched emotional life will naturally inspire him to learn. For over 80 years Summerhill has had a major impact on alternative education. Many schools throughout the world have been modeled after Summerhill, and Neill's books have sold millions of
copies internationally.
At Summerhill, the children are free to make their own decisions: whether to attend lessons, climb a tree, swim in the pool or read a book all day, as long as their actions don't interfere with anyone else's life. This simple rule of freedom versus license is the cornerstone of the Summerhill community. Structured on the principle of "rational authority", Summerhill has created a hierarchical system based on social expectation by maturity, skill and/or knowledge. The youngest children live in the house with house parents, the oldest children live in cottages, each with a separate room and have as much responsibility as the adults in community affairs. The intricacy of a social system primarily developed by children gives testimony to the human capacity for learning and cooperation latent
within each person, adult and child.
The heart of the community is its weekly general meetings, where laws are established, changed or abolished, and its weekly tribunals. "It's up to the kids to sort out their own problems and only when problems are too difficult do they themselves call in adults to help. This is what leads to the kind of emotional maturity among the kids", says Matthew, a house parent.
The battle between the government and the school portrayed in Imagine a School...Summerhill is indicative of the struggles raging throughout educational systems around the world. The central issues are whether or not education should be compulsory and standardized test scores and how well they measure the level of a child's intellectual and emotional progress. In fact, Summerhill students' GCSE test scores are often well above the national average scores. The school notes that a child at Summerhill, once he or she decides to learn, will typically learn five years worth of material in two. Supporters of Summerhill insist that if the
government tested instead children's selfesteem, social skills and psychological growth, Summerhill kids would score much higher than students at traditional schools.
As the debate continues, it is clear that Summerhill provides important data on the
connection between emotional health and learning. Summerhill School is important not only to educational reform, but to child and human welfare. If conventional educators ask how Summerhill prepares its students for the harsh realities of the real world, the Summerhill community would ask the more crucial question: Is the purpose of education to train children to passively conform to an inhumane world, or is it to give them the tools to better shape society to the needs of humanity?
THE FILMMAKERS
William Tyler Smith, Director
William Tyler Smith is an international award-winning writer/director, producer and photographer, who has worked on both documentary and narrative features in film and TV. Smith directed Kiss Me Again, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival as part of the New York Feature Film Competition and starred Jeremy London (Mallrats, Party of Five), Darrel Hammond (SNL), Elisa Donovan (Clueless) and Katheryn Winnick (Failure to Launch). Kiss Me Again also screened at the Berkshire International Film Festival, Zurich Film Festival and Moscow American Independent Festival of Film. It was theatrically released in New York and distributed on DVD in the U.S. and internationally.
His short films, Lloyd, Elise & Jennifer and New York. Interior-Night have been widely screened across the U.S. and abroad, including Ankara, Bilbao, Bombay, Valencia, Malta, Naples, Czechoslovakia and Barcelona, receiving numerous awards along the way. Upon seeing Interior-Night Doors keyboardist, Ray Manzarek called Smith "extremely talented", which led to Smith's first feature documentary The Third Mind, about the artistic fusion between Manzarek and beat poet, Michael McClure. The Third Mind had its successful international premiere at the Venice Film Festival in Italy, its U.S. premiere at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and was broadcast on the Sundance Channel and soon after was picked up for distribution by Mystic Fire Video (Winstar). Kevin Thomas, film critic for the Los Angeles Times, called The Third Mind, "an incisive and engaging exploration..." and further "The Third Mind has lots of energy and style, and it is an altogether stimulating work."
Smith's two critically acclaimed experimental videos, A Voice From The Streets and Bari-Ellen, Can You Hear Me? led him to join UCLA's graduate filmmaking program, where he was the recipient of numerous prestigious awards such as the Lew Wasserman Fellowship. Smith's mentor at UCLA, Hungarian director, Gyula Gazdag, selected Smith to share camera operating duties on the documentary about Allen Ginsberg, A Poet On The Lower East Side.
Believing strongly in the concept of inspirational education, Smith has taught filmmaking at UCLA and currently teaches directing at the New York Film Academy. He is also in development on the narrative feature version of Imagine a School...Summerhill, which he wrote with fellow filmmaker Julian Hoxter, to be produced by M.E.G.A. Films with Scottish director Gillies MacKinnon attached to direct. Smith and Hoxter have also formed a production company 418 Films, Ltd.
Julian Hoxter, Director of Photography
Director of photography and co-producer, Julian Hoxter is currently Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Media with Cultural Studies in the Media Arts
Faculty of Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK. Hoxter has a
BA in Drama and English and an MA in Film Studies from the University of
East Anglia, Norwich. He also studied film production at UCLA for three
years where he met Smith. Hoxter is in a unique position as a filmmaker
possessing and combining both the intellectual skills of a critical theorist and
the technical expertise of a filmmaker. He has an extensive background in
documentary filmmaking and has been a director of photography on many
films and videos including William Tyler Smith's New York. Interior-Night.
With Smith he has co-written a dramatic narrative feature based on Imagine
a School...Summerhill. With director William Tyler Smith, Hoxter is a partner
in the production company 418 Films, Ltd.
Ann Jackman, Editor and Co-Producer
Ann Jackman is a Boston-based editor who has been working in post-production for 14 years, first as an assistant editor on feature films and then as an editor on non-fiction programming. Trained on a Steenbeck, she works primarily with Final Cut and Avid. Credits include programs for Animal Planet, ESPN, The Learning Channel, HGTV, and the New England Aquarium, as well as corporate videos and independent documentaries that have aired on the BBC, PBS, and the Smithsonian Channel. Jackman's interest in Summerhill stems from her undergraduate degree in psychology at Dartmouth College, where she focused on child development. Imagine a School...Summerhill has benefited not only from her expert editing skills but also her rock solid commitment to the project.
THE COMPANY
Morris Levy, Producer
Morris Levy is president and founder of New York City based M.E.G.A. Films, a full service production company for film, stage and television. His feature film Kiss Me Again, starring Darrell Hammond and Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live had its World Premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. He has also completed the short film Little Black Dress starring Rosario Dawson for Glamour magazine and IFC films. Recent projects include Descent with Rosario Dawson and The Ten starring Jessica Alba, Winona Ryder, Paul Rudd, Famke Janssen, Oliver Platt, Liev Shreiber, Adam Brody and Gretchen Mol. Both films were released in theaters in August 2007 and on DVD in January 2008. Besides producing Imagine a School...Summerhill, Levy has signed on critically acclaimed Scottish director Gillies MacKinnon to direct a narrative feature film based on the
documentary in the fall of 2008.
Jill Gambaro, Associate Producer and Sales Agent
Jill Gambaro is an award-winning screenwriter, creative producer and entrepreneur. In 1993, Jill launched her own film production company CinemAntics Productions, later adding an alternative media division and incorporating as Reflection Media in 2006. Her unique gifts as a film producer
include discovering new talent, putting together creative production teams, and
marketing films. Most notably, she has the extraordinary ability to produce
independent feature films with high quality production value. Both Hollywood
insiders and members of the independent film community have acknowledged
Jill's skills as a producer, establishing her as a new creative force in the industry.
Gambaro lends her conceptual expertise, as well as marketing skills to the production of Imagine a School...Summerhill.
Production Company: 418 Films, Ltd.
Sponsor: Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK
Technical:
Intended running time: 67 minutes
Production Formats: Betacam SP, Super 8, S-VHS
Intended screening formats: DigiBeta and/or HDCAM
Available Rights: Worldwide
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States/Great Britain
Key Personnel:
Director: William Tyler Smith
Executive Producers: William Tyler Smith & J. D. Hoxter
Producers: Morris S. Levy, Emma Broomhead & Ann Jackman
Associate Producer and Sales Agent: Jill Gambaro
Director of Photography: J. D. Hoxter
Editor: Ann Jackman
Music Composer: Justin Samaha
Cast: Includes interviews with Orson Bean, Tom Conti, Peter Coyote, Rebecca De Mornay, and Jake Weber
Crew:
Camera Operators: J. D. Hoxter. W. T. Smith
Additional Camera: Emma Broomhead, Doug Manning, Summerhill students, Wesley Venn
Camera Assistants: Samantha Flynn, Mike Bickerton
Sound Recordists: Adam Merrifield, Anne Forberg. Vicki Kisner
Boom Operators: Sarah Atkinson, Mike Bickerton, Kristy Garland, Doug Manning, Hanna
Merrilainen, Tony Ayres
Publicity: Judy Sandra, JS Media Publicity & Development
CONTACTS
For Sales: Jill Gambaro
Reflection Media, Inc
www.reflectionmedia.com
For Press: Judy Sandra
JS Media Publicity
judy@judysandramedia.com
www.judysandramedia.com