Award winning documentary Us Kids multi-city drive-in screening series in partnership with March for Our Lives to mobilize youth civic engagement will stop in Philadelphia on Tuesday, September 8. The screening will feature a live pre-screening conversation with Director Kim A. Snyder and special guests, including social activist Bria Smith and social activist (and Philadelphia resident) Khaliah Ali Wertheimer.
Sparked by the plague of gun violence ravaging their schools, Us Kids chronicles the March For Our Lives (MFOL) movement over the course of several years. The film follows youth activist Emma Gonzalez, MFOL co-founders, survivors and a group of teenage activists as they pull off the largest youth protest in American history and set out across the world to build an inclusive and unprecedented youth movement that addresses racial justice, a growing public health crisis and shocking a political system into change.
“With gun sales skyrocketing since the onset of COVID along with gun violence disproportionately affecting BIPOC communities, and suicide and domestic violence on the rise, the issue of gun violence cannot be siloed from what is happening in our streets. This screening tour is intended to stand in solidarity with the youth movement we’ve been working with these past years in creating the film to ensure the gun issue be a top priority as we head into this critical period, “ said filmmaker Kim A Snyder.
The film premiered in early 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival, followed by SXSW, Full Frame Festival where it won the Kathleen Edwards Bryan award for Human Rights, and Telluride Mountainfilm for Best Documentary. For the nationwide, 9+ city drive-in screening tour, film subjects Samantha Fuentes and Alex Dworet, both surviving wounds by an AR15 in their classrooms and bonded by the loss of friend and brother Nick Dworet, hit the road following the Miami kick-off to engage with youth across the state of Florida and beyond. Motivated by their experience and along-side March for Our Lives, Samantha and Alex worked to emphasize the importance of youth civic engagement as they visit various cities.
“I honestly don’t feel whole if I’m not doing something that makes up for the fact that I had people murdered in front of me,” says Samantha Fuentes.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 8
TIME: 8:00 PM (Lot opens at 7:00 PM)
WHERE: PFS Drive-In at the Navy Yard (League Island Blvd & Admiral Peary Way, Philadelphia, PA 19112)
COST: $12 per adult and $7 per child (over age 3)
TICKETS, INFO, GUIDELINES: http://filmadelphia.org/events/us-kids/
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