Charlie Pearson

In an era when Dick, Jane, and discipline ruled America's schools, Albert Cullum allowed Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Shaw to reign in his fifth grade public school classroom. Through the use of poetry, drama and imaginative play, Cullum championed an unorthodox educational philosophy that spoke directly to his students' needs. Many of Cullum's projects were recorded on film by then novice filmmaker Robert Downey, Sr. Weaving stunning black and white footage and rare archival television broadcasts together with interviews of Cullum and his former students, this is a portrait of a maverick teacher who transformed a generation of young people by enabling them to discover their own inner greatness.

A family meeting to decide what to do with the ashes of recently deceased Nanna takes an unexpected turn when Nanna comes back from the dead in an attempt to sort out some of the personal problems of her offspring.

Members of a racially mixed cast of self-confessed murderers is transformed by acting in a play about slavery and freedom that took three years to mount.