Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Sun Alex This documentary about this small town with just 415 students in high school that is 60% black and 40% white and has segregated proms every single year till 2008- one for black and one for white- hard to believe but it's true. Then, one day in 1997 an actor Morgan Freeman (a resident of Charleston since 1991) approached the school and offered to pay for the prom, provided it to be racially integrated. The school declined Freeman's offer. Then, 11 years later he goes back and offered again, and the school agreed to move forward with an integrated prom. So, the prom preparation starts. Over next four months as the seniors of Charleston High School prepare for their senior prom; the director/producer/writer of the documentary follows the group of senior students, both black and white. The students discuss segregation in Charleston and how they feel about it. The documentary also explores issues such as interracial relationships, and what the parents think about an integrated prom. The integrated prom is successful despite some parents' forbidding their children to attend it, and that a white only prom was held by some of the parents. Some of the students also said that some of their parents would threaten the black kids because they were friends with a white kid. In the end the white parents still had their lame white people only prom and the integrated prom went smoothly lots of people showed up. It seemed like more people were having fun at the integrated prom then the white prom. Some of the white students even had black students as their date like Jeremy and Brittany, happily together to this day. When someone asked Paul what happened after graduation, he said that Brittany and Jeremy still love each other and that no one is married yet. Not all of the students went to college, because most of the black were poor so they worked to get money for college. The white parents still have the white people only prom and the integrated prom is still happening. In 2010, the graduation rate was 68.8%. So it was fascinating and interesting and I would love to watch it again.

lisemaerodgers Just saw the documentary last night. Am still slack-jawed at the fact that just LAST YEAR was a first integrated prom in any high school in this country. HOWEVER . . . I only just NOW figured it out -- it's actually pretty simple. Mr Freeman's initial thought that the kids would be happy about integrating the prom was depressingly undercut by the fact that many weren't -- and that even some of the most enlightened kids STILL WENT TO THE WHITES ONLY PROM!!! But, clearly, the fact that blacks so greatly outnumber the whites in the school means that NO WHITE KID STOOD THE CHANCE OF BEING PROM KING OR QUEEN. I'm sure that several had their hearts set on the crown their entire high school career. Pardon my cynicism, but I wouldn't be surprised if the anger at this little fact alone accounts for the mysterious naming of a white kid as valedictorian. I no longer consider this film to be depressing or complicated. It's just HIGH SCHOOL AS USUAL.

criticlh-1 There was something special about seeing this film at the Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson, Mississippi. There were some in the audience who did not know that proms were still segregated in some cities. Of course, they don't have to be segregated in Jackson because the vast majority of white students there attend private schools.Be that as it may, this film makes it clear that racism is not an either-or proposition. There are some students who have black friends but would only date whites, a few who either by their own choice or under pressure from their parents will not attend an integrated prom, and one interracial couple who decide to become really public by going to the prom together. On one thing the students seem almost unanimous: separate proms is their parents' idea, not theirs.Almost everyone seemed to be willing to talk to the film makers, except the small group of parents who organized their own whites-only prom. Perhaps the most powerful portion of the film is an interview with a white father who struggles with his own racist attitudes while refusing to give up on his daughter, whose boyfriend is black. I cannot think of a movie more likely to promote discussion about issues of race than Prom Night. And on top of that, it's just plain worth watching.

George Carr Saw this yesterday at our film festival, and was very impressed. The film studies the phenomenon of a racially integrated senior prom from several perspectives, mixing student interviews with footage of key events in their prom preparation, like buying dresses and confirming dates. The interviews achieve a happy mix of blunt candor with adolescent innocence, and one comes away with the notion that racism is not so much a yes-no status as a continuum along which everyone can be placed: some kids want to socialize with kids of other races, but would not date them; some parents work hard to prevent their children from interracial dating, but ultimately permit it. This is a film that is destined as a springboard for discussion; it certainly provoked a long talk among the crowd I saw it with.