Caribbean Tales Film Festival 2020 presenting a film about school lockdowns in the US


Film Festival Entry Lockdowns student’s fear of school shootings.
By Stephen Weir
The fear of gun violence in US schools is raising students’ stress levels to Code Red.  Generation Lockdown, a new 17-minute film about mass shootings in schools, will in all likelihood scare students, concern parents and make educators wonder if it could happen here in Canada.
Lockdown – the protocol that American schools follow when there is a threat to students – means locking and barricading classroom doors and windows. The students hunker down clutching their teacher waiting until the emergency is over.
 “ Lockdowns have become a hallmark of American Education and become a by product of the United States’ inability to curb its gun violence epidemic,” explains New York City based director Sirad Balducci.   
“We hope this film will incentivize parents to be the first in the line of defense by removing kids’ access to guns in the home and giving them tools to identify stress and anxiety caused by lockdown drills.” 
Caleb Brown
Her 2020 film is short and not so sweet. It is a movie seen through the eyes of Caleb Brown, an 11-year old New Jersey student.  A few minutes after being dropped off at school, a lockdown is called.  His best friend is in the washroom when the alarm is sounded, he spends much of the film trying to save his pal’s life as a man in military gear stalks the halls firing a high powered assault weapon.
This film is based on a short story by Caleb Brown. At the time he was a 6th grader from a middle school in New Jersey. His story examines the PTSD of repeated lockdown drills and the fallout of the American gun epidemic.
 Generation Lockdown is being offered to film festivals around the world. “We will partner with organizations that are working toward changing gun laws and improving school safety”
The film has already won the Award of Excellence at this year’s Global Shorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. Generation Lockdown will get its Canadian debut the evening of September 16th at the Caribbean Tales Film Festival in Toronto as part of their Truth to Power themed evening.  Also screening will be: Life and Death, a 6-minute T&T film by Sonja Dumas; Fear, a US film by Joram Savion; K.I.N.G a US film by Rashad Frett; and the 2018 Jamaican film Flight by Kia Moses.

The 15th annual CaribbeanTales Film Festival runs from September 9th until October 2nd. This year, because of the virus shutdown, the CTFF will take place online with nine nights and more than 25 short and feature films of live stream entertainment.

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