Tuesday, June 5--------Even though the film was screening in Portugal, many thousands of miles from its setting in Austin, Texas, the audience was remarkably the same. "There is always a strong core of teachers who come to our screenings", director Mike Akel said of his film CHALK, one of six American independent films screening in competition here at Festroia. When polling the audience during his introductory remarks, to see how many teachers were in the audience of 250, nearly 30 people raised their hands. "It's the same everywhere", Akel told me afterwards. "Teachers are interested in seeing themselves portrayed in the screen, and this film really connects for them."

CHALK definitely did connect with its audience at last night's sold-out screening at the Charlot Cinema. The film is unique, not only in its subject matter (young teachers finding their way in the corridors of modern education), but also in its mix of documentary and drama. In the large cast of teachers, administrators and students, only four are actual actors. The rest are actual teachers and students at the high school where Akel taught for several years before venturing into his directing career. Until you read the end credits, it is hard to determine who is "acting" and who is "being".....quite a compliment for the fledgling director's debut. "The script was a mix of improvisation and written dialogue", Akel explained, "but we wanted to capture a very real feeling of what it is really like to be a first year teacher in a lower middle class high school with lots of ethnic diversity and where the students look like normal high schoolers, not Hollywood rock stars."

CHALK has been a labor of love for Akel, a former stand-up comic and improvisational artist who taught high school to make ends meet. He found the experience of dealing with the bureaucracy of the school administration and the seesawing loyalties of fellow teachers and students to be loaded with high drama and low comedy. The film focuses on a group of three teachers (a first year history teacher taking a hiatus from the corporate world, a high-strung over-achiever who is desperate to be crowned Teacher of the Year, an aggressive gym teacher who frets that no man will date her since they all assume that she is a lesbian) and a newly appointed assistant principal, a former teacher, who now struggles with the long hours and new sets of loyalties that her job demands.

These four are the professional actors, and in the film's confessional style (the characters offer their innermost thoughts and insecurities as a kind of video diary, directly into the camera) only blurs the lines between drama and documentary even more. Shot in a non-fiction aesthetic of cinema verite, the film's most effective sequences are in the classroom, where teachers visibly struggle to find a way to make their lessons relevant and interesting for a student body that seems supremely bored and utterly distracted. The students, all non-actors, bring the truest sense of realism to the film, while the teachers and their administration colleagues dart between "true life" and obviously scripted set pieces that offer the tongue-in-cheek comedic style of the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest and the television hit THE OFFICE.

The film, which is in general release and opens in New York on Friday, has traveled the festival circuit, winning awards at the Los Angeles Film Festival (best ensemble acting), Florida Film Festival (best ensemble acting), Gen Art Film Festival (Stargazer Award for actor Troy Schremmer) and the Austin Film Festival, where its hometown team won both the Best Film and Audience Favorite awards. It was at one of these festivals in Los Angeles, that Akel made the acquaintance of documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (SUPERSIZE ME) who came on board as Executive Producer of the project and is prominently featured on the film's poster and ad campaign. To promote the release of the film, the filmmakers created fictional portrait pages on MySpace for its four lead characters, further blurring the lines between what is real and what is fiction. The filmmakers are developing a television series for 20th Century Fox based on the film's premise and its mix of acting and "reality". The film's website is quite inventive and innovative. Check it out on www.chalkthemovie.com.

The film does an excellent job of highlighting life in the trenches of that most honorable and frustrating profession...teaching. The world of Harrison High (the actual school where Akel taught and the setting for the film) is often absurd, provocative, and occasionally volatile....a teasing yet accurate view of public education in America. In a country where 50% of teachers quit within the first three years, CHALK explains the reasons behind those kind of statistics: long working hours, emotionally deadening bureaucracy, rivalries with other teachers, conflicts with administrators and the herculean efforts needed to keep students awake and motivated, without appearing to be a total ass in the process (not so easy). In the end, however, with the first year professor needing to decide whether he will renew his contract and return for a second year (not made clear in the film, but my vote is that he does return), the film offers an optimistic "light at the end of the tunnel" that, with all its frustrations, teaching is indeed a "gift" and a vital and necessary professional that has its own unique rewards.delivers an enormous dose of heart, hilarity, and hope for America's most important institution.

Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Online Dailies Editor