Steve James was deep into the process of editing his new project—one of the most personal documentaries hes ever made—when something completely unexpected happened: he got an Oscar nomination. The director of Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters, and Life Itself is one of the most acclaimed documentarians working today. But hed never been nominated in the best-documentary-feature Oscar category until this year, when his financial-crisis documentary, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, was cited by the Academy.
James went to the Oscars, happily, accompanied by the members of the Chinese-American family featured in the film, and content in knowing he wouldnt win. (He didnt.) But the awards-season hoopla also kept him away from the editing room in Chicago, where his 10-part docuseries, America to Me—debuting Sunday night on Starz—was taking shape. “I would go out for a screening, and then come right back and get back into editing,” James said. “And then go out for a screening. And I told Abacus folks, I cannot go to L.A. and just hang out for a couple of weeks and do screenings. But other than the craziness of that, it wasnt so bad. And again, any time spent with the Sung family is pretty fun.”
Whats even more fun, though, is the homecomings and football games and slam-poetry sessions and warm family dinners covered in America to Me, an expansive series with a deeply serious question at its center—how can communities actually confront systemic racism?—as well as a crew of lively, lovable teenagers. James, a longtime resident of the Chicago-adjacent neighborhood of Oak Park, had the idea to film at the massive local Oak Park and River Forest High School back when his children were enrolled there, but knew right away “it would be weird” to make the film at that time.
In 2014, though, he and his team began working to get permission to film in the school. Their proposal was approved in a 6-to-1 vote by the school board, but fiercely opposed by the schools principal, Nathaniel Rouse, and superintendent, Steven Isoye, neither of whom agreed to be interviewed for the series. Thirty years of documentary filmmaking meant James was used to making his way into unwelcome places with a camera in his hand, but never before in his own community—which is why he was exactly the person to do it.
“I dont think theres any way that anyone could have come in from outside, no matter who they were,” James said during a conversation in April at Durham, North Carolinas Full Frame documentary festival. “Once it was put out there that we wanted to make this film, I think there were a lot of people in the community thought it was a good idea. I think there was this feeling that this was a chance to hold a mirror up that would tell us something.”
Oak Park is the physical embodiment of what might be called Obama-era post-racialism: a liberal, relatively diverse neighborhood with desirable schools, including O.P.R.F., where just over half of the student population is white. But despite gestures toward diversity and closing the “achievement inequities” between white students and students of color, that inequity is only growing. James and his team show the hand-wringing over this through school-board meetings—where parents fret for their kids, and administrators debate possible solutions—and in classroom scenes, where the student makeup grows whiter as class levels go higher. “Oak Park has always been kind of a destination for people who are having kids who wanna live in a liberal, progressive community,” James said. “Its part of the allure and the appeal of Oak Park, and yet it has got this problem that it cant seem to get on top of in any meaningful way.”
In a time of Twitter Nazis and ICE raids, the racism seen in America to Me—micro-aggressions, slurs muttered on a football field—might escape notice. For white families, it has for decades; to them, Oak Park works just fine. But thats what makes it so thorny and fascinating to explore, especially through the films captivating subjects like Chanti Relf, a bi-racial artsy student exploring gender identity, or teacher Jessica Stovall, who does an exercise with her class to explain the difference between “equality” and “equity.” As the series tracks the school year, more characters are introduced, including some white students who, James says, were hesitant to participate at first. “It took us till deep into the first semester to finally get the white kids, after a lot of effort,” he said.
America to Me will air on Starz, a network that has made hits out of Scottish romances and pirate sagas—and on the heels of a blockbuster summer for documentary films, with Wont You Be My Neighbor? and RBG still drawing art-house crowds. Jamess first television docuseries, The New Americans, premiered in 2004; he remembers that many critics, with only so much print-column space to deploy, chose to cover a Heidi Fleiss biopic instead. Its a new environment for documentaries on television, led by the smash success of O.J.: Made in America, The Jinx, and Netflixs entire documentary wave. But will that include a thought-provoking, panoramic look at a very functional high school, no murder mysteries included?
“Were not going into a besieged public high school where theres gang violence and danger and all of those kinds of hooks, right? Were going into a very safe community—very diverse, well-funded school, liberals,” James said. “And [were] eventually asking you to devote 10 hours to watching those kind of stories.”
But James has faith in his work—and maybe even more in the teenagers at the center of it. “Its entertaining,” he said. “You know, we get into some stuff. But its never medicine.” He continued, “Television is in a whole different place in the culture. But I feel, at least at this stage, that we have a shot at this having a real presence out there in the world. And a continuing presence. I feel like if people start watching it, theyll keep watching it.”
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Katey RichKatey Rich is the deputy editor of VanityFair.com.
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