The World's Best Prom
The World's Best Prom
Distributed by Matson Films and now available on DVD at www.worldsbestprom.com or on netflix.
The Epicenter of Prom Genius
--Ira Glass, This American Life
Best Documentary, Wisconsin Film Festival 2001
A short and feature documentary film by OVO
Short version directed by OVO, edited by Ari Vena and Hillevi Loven
Feature version directed by Ari Vena and Chris Talbott
A small post-industrial city nestled between Chicago and Milwaukee, Racine takes its prom celebration very seriously. Once a year for over fifty years, prom-mania infects the entire population. The city's extravagant celebration includes a rowdy parade that converges at Festival Hall, where students battling for the most outrageous mode of transportation can be seen arriving in trolleys, fire trucks, and even on the back of an elephant. Prom participants enter the party via a red carpet accompanied by the flash of cameras, live television crews, and approving screams from bleachers filled to capacity. If the Academy Awards were to suddenly move to the middle of the country, this is what it might resemble.
The short documentary's fast-paced treatment of flashy entrances and prom-day Cinderella transformations earned it the Best Documentary award at the Wisconsin Film Festival, and a wide spectrum of national coverage ranging from The Jenny Jones Show to NPR's This American Life.
Through intimate, complimentary stories of two girls' prom experiences, one black and one white, the feature documentary brings to life an American right of passage taken to the extreme, while providing a vivid portrait of a beleaguered city with a proud history struggling to reinvent itself for the sake of its teens.
