Films: Pressure Cooker

Pressure Cooker

USA, 2008, 99 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: African-American, Documentary, Educational, Social Issues
Programs: Films in Competition, Documentary Films
Language: English

DIRECTOR: Mark Becker, Jennifer Grausman
Producer: Jennifer Grausman, Myna Joseph, (executive) Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann
Editor: Mark Becker
Cinematographer: Mark Becker, Justin Schein, Leigh Iacobucci
US Distributor: Bev Pictures

MUST END Thursday, August 13
35mm presentation - Pressure Cooker profiles the lives of three high school seniors from Northeast Philadelphia, each with unique hardships but with the shared goal of winning scholarships to the country's best culinary schools. Their unlikely hero is irreverent Culinary Arts teacher Wilma Stephenson. A legend in the school system, Mrs. Stephenson's hilariously blunt boot-camp method of teaching Culinary Arts is validated by years of scholarship success. Against the backdrop of the row homes of working-class Philadelphia, she has helped countless students reach the top culinary schools in the country. And under her fierce direction, the usual distractions of high school are swept aside as Erica, Dudley and Fatoumata prepare to achieve beyond what anyone else expects from them.

Sponsors:

CU Denver Live!, Hotel VQ, Nina Henderson Moore/Three Sistahs, Three Sistahs

Official Film Website

You might also enjoy...

• 

  Hungu

  Canada , 2008 , 9 min. Inspired by African rock paintings and the musical instrument from which it takes its name, Hungu offers a tale of hope amid death in one of the most visually arresting films you will see this year.... more
• 

  On the Grind

  USA , 2008 , 12 min. A socially conscious portrait of street rapper Artino Rope, who faces the possibility of homelessness as he considers the consequences of his quest for fame.... more
• 

  Pray the Devil Back to Hell

  USA , 2008 , 72 min. MUST END Thursday, January 29 35mm presentation - Shortly after warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor was elected in 1997, Liberia erupted into civil war for the second time in a decade. Child soldiers ran rampant through the streets of Monrovia, terrorizing the local population, wh... more
• 

  Premature

  USA , 2008 , 15 min. Tisha, a streetwise teenager from the Bronx, has no one to turn to when she discovers she’s pregnant—so she must face the most difficult decision she will ever make alone.... more
• 

  Prince of Broadway

  USA , 2008 , 100 min. The life of an illegal immigrant from Ghana who hustles knockoff duds in New York City’s wholesale district is turned upside down when a former girlfriend saddles him with a toddler she claims is his. Kinetic handheld camerawork captures the chaos.... more
• 

  Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

  USA , 2008 , 80 min. Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai went from reforesting the hills of her native Kenya to leading a political movement that would bring down a twenty-four-year dictatorship. This persuasive documentary weighs the dangers and triumphs of her mission.... more
• 

  Thing with No Name

  South Africa , 2008 , 74 min. Sarah Friedland’s highly personal look at the tragic epidemic of AIDS in Africa focuses on two HIV-positive Zulu women in the starkly beautiful province of KwaZulu-Natal who acquire valuable antiretroviral drugs—only to experience mixed feelings and mixed results.... more
• 

  War Child

  USA , 2008 , 90 min. First-time director C. Karim Chrobog documents the life story of Sudanese hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal, once a child soldier who carried an AK-47 at age seven. Now he raps about the horrors of his war-torn homeland, pleading for peace.... more
• 

  Wesley Willis's Joyrides

  USA , 2008 , 78 min. Chicago street artist, cult musician, and chronic schizophrenic Wesley Willis survived a violent childhood to devote his much-too-short life to the creative process. Documentarians Chris Bagley and Kim Shively chronicle his improbable rise to fame.... more