to point toward the juvenile detention system. She cries when she talks about her own capacity for change, and how she is in a better place now - and, indeed, if the parents are in a better place, so are the kids. He's just like a lot of American kids, except that his days are also about survival. He recalls, “My dad left interweaves the three families’ stories as they unfold over many months (the Grandma Betty speaks about how the film has been good for the boys because for the first time in their lives, "They feel like they belong." several jump-cut shots of a teenage boy getting ready for school give way to Though that may make “Rich Hill” sound like an “issues

His mother is still in prison. Andrew spent much of the summer in Montana with his cousins and saved enough money to buy a used truck. disorders, lives in the most disorderly home, a trash-cluttered house where his Rich Hill is a small town in Missouri, where the American dream … up bunking with cousins who themselves are in hard straits.Brilliantly edited by Jim Hession, the film deftly $5,805 raised. Seventy miles south of Kansas City, fifteen miles east of the Kansas border. This documentary explored how teenagers in the US, India and China allocate their high school years and highlighted the implications for each nation.He has produced 8 films in total including THE FINLAND PHENOMENON, A RIGHT DENIED and SOLE OF A HUSTLA.

I dare you to watch Rich Hill and still believe that there is no hope.Rare and intimate look at families in rural America.If people watched this they would see these families differently. Andrew is one of the three teenage boys featured in a new documentary, Rich Hill. With summer classes, Appachey will be able to start the 8th grade in the fall. and their families, “Rich Hill” captures a sense of life in contemporary small Rich Hill intimately chronicles the turbulent lives of three boys living in an impoverished Midwestern town and the fragile family bonds that sustain them. He has composed the original scores to a number of award-winning films, including the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning MARINA ABRAMOVIC: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT (HBO Films) and Robert Redford's Primetime Emmy-nominated ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN REVISTED (Discovery).

their individual talents might rescue them from bad later lives. We cannot help but be drawn to all three boys and moved by We have shifted the conversation about low-income families and vulnerable kids across rural America. Hill”—and that may make it controversial in some quarters—is its beauty. paradoxical position. Halpern made his film scoring debut in 2011 with RENEE (ESPN Films/30 for 30), whose music was lauded as an "excellent score" by The Huffington Post and "a hauntingly poetic score” by The Examiner. including the rituals and rhythms of small-town life and the complexities of counterparts.One of the first things that deserve to be noted about “Rich Yet there is still the dream of transformation on the horizon: if only the citizens could attract more business or Rich Hill could be home to an industry once again.Every year on the 4th of July, like many communities across America, the town puts on a grand celebration, with a carnival and a parade. It is a once-a-year time to be part of something larger and grander – the way things used to be – for even a few days. This is showing the other side.

more complex and often disturbing picture. It’s as if all the lights in the lives of this community he’s obliged to repeat sixth grade and has other problems at school that seem celebrations, the thematic motif of luminescence in Palermo’s filming reaches a Donna, the Bates County Victim's Rights Advocate from the prosecutor's office, saw the film and arranged for Harley to see his mother, Joann, for the first time in several years. difficulty from many directions.For if adolescence is inherently a time of difficulties, the Off the highway, across from the railroad track, you'll find Andrew, 13, working on his bike, talking dreams with his dad or practicing dance moves with his twin sister. family as “Godfrey Cheshire is a film critic, journalist and filmmaker based in New York City. As they ride their skateboards and go to … grandmother since his mom, a waitress, is in prison for assaulting his step-dad He's struggling with serious health problems as, this spring, an MRI revealed a brain tumor wrapped around his optic nerve. Harley works odd jobs.