caroline suh Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Here are this weekend's box office success stories in the indie film world:

1. Frontrunners (Oscilloscope)
2. Rachel Getting Married (Sony Pictures Classics)
3. Fireproof (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
4. Religulous (Lionsgate Films)

Caroline Suh's documentary Frontrunners (pictured), which follows four teens running for elective office at a prestigious high school in New York City, had its world premiere at South by Southwest and was acquired for distribution by Oscilloscope, founded by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, in July. Opening at one theater in New York, the film earned $7,400 over the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, the third highest per-screen total among limited releases. That's a very good accomplishment for the fledgling Oscilloscope.

Jonathan Demme's drama Rachel Getting Married expanded from 27 to 69 theaters in selected cities across the country (including mine) and increased solidly to a per-screen average of $10,464. It's earned more than $1.75 million so far. I saw it on Saturday and was disappointed by its utterly ordinary, overly familiar dysfunctional family routines and excessive padding for what is a very thin story, but a ton of people showed up for the early afternoon screening, so I guess everyone loves weddings and the promise of battling sisters working out all their problems in a single weekend.

On the "pro" side of religion, Fireproof, a drama starring Kirk Cameron, added even more theaters (up to 905 now) and dropped very little, percentage wise, totaling more than $20 million in four weeks of release. On the "con" side, Religulous, a doc by Larry Charles featuring Bill Maher, dropped a few theaters (to 504 locations) yet still burst past the $9 million mark, a remarkable performance for a documentary.

Stuyvesant High School in New York City is one of the most prestigious public schools in the country. Only 3% of the 25,000 students who apply there are accepted. Before the screening of Frontrunners, director Caroline Suh told the crowd that one reason she chose Stuyvesant for filming a documentary about a high school election is because the students there are likely, in their adult years, to be the future leaders of our country. Competition is tough at Stuyvesant, and because the student body is made up of kids from all five boroughs of New York City, its composed of a melting pot of ethnic and economic diversity that, in its way, reflects the diversity of the country. Well, kind of -- if the country had a 50% Asian population and was entirely composed of the top 3%.

What is reflective of our country is the school's voter apathy. Of the 3,200 students attending Stuyvesant, most of them don't vote in the student union elections, or even know or care who's running. Like many adults living in the United States who don't exercise their right to vote, most of the students at Stuyvesant simply don't see the elections as relevant to their lives. Frontrunners follows the four tickets running for the offices of Student Union president and vice-president in the school's most recent elections, and the candidates' battle to garner the most votes from those students who do care enough to participate in the process.