The Image Formed

Runners High

D: Alex D. da Silva, Justine Jacob

Take a group of high school teenagers from the wrong part of Oakland, Calif., with quotas statistically aimed at economic and social failure, and enroll them in a four-month marathon-training program. The experiment that unfolds is the subject of Runners High, a sincere documentary that demonstrates what a group of determined instructors can do with a pack of largely undetermined and out-of-shape teenagers. The film gives great exposure to a valuable organization, Students Run Oakland, and demonstrates the powerful effects of running as a method of learning and growing. Over the course of 26.2 miles, the audience realizes that the coaches and volunteers of SRO are less interested in training these kids to be athletes than they are with nurturing them, working through their personal problems, and keeping them off the streets, unless they are wearing running shoes. – Sofia Resnick

10/21, 2:30pm, Hideout; 10/23, 9:15pm, Arbor