Best Kept Secret

Description

In Samantha Buck's acclaimed documentary, Best Kept Secret, a Newark, NJ teacher struggles to prepare her students with autism to survive in the brutal world that awaits them once they graduate. JFK High School, located in the midst of a run-down area in Newark, New Jersey, is a public school for all types of students with special education needs, ranging from those on the autism spectrum to those with multiple disabilities. Janet Mino has taught her class of young men with autism for four years. When they all graduate in the spring of 2012, they will leave the security of the public school system forever. Best Kept Secret follows Ms. Mino and her students over the year and a half before graduation. The clock is ticking to find them a place in the adult world – a job or rare placement in a recreational center – so they do not end up where their predecessors have, sitting at home, institutionalized, or on the streets. After winning the Audience Award at IFF Boston and Best of Fest at AFI Docs, the film was released in N.Y. and L.A., garnering a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and was broadcast on PBS' award-winning series, POV. It is one of 5 films nominated for the Gotham Independent Film Awards' Audience Award. “An exemplary documentary. [Best Kept Secret] expands its storytelling to the boundaries of messy, joyful and painful reality.” Miriam Bale, The New York Times (Critics’ Pick) “Engrossing and heartbreaking. . . Hugely inspiring! [Janet Mino] is one of the cinematic heroines of the year.” Ernest Hardy, L.A. Weekly/The Village Voice “Deeply moving and thankfully unsentimental. . . engrosses even as it sheds much-needed light on its important issue.” – Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter “A moving documentary. . . inserting the viewer into the overwhelming experience of teaching, parenting, even being an underprivileged young adult with autism.” - AnnLee Ellingson, The L.A. Times