High School

Join us in the cinema for the new 4K restoration of Frederick Wiseman's examination of the American high school.

Welcome to Northeast High School, located in the predominantly white and middle-class residential neighbourhood of Northeast Philadelphia. Teachers take an authoritarian stance with students, doling out detentions and suspensions for backchat, and offering unwanted life advice on everything from fashion, relationships and sex.

Unbeknownst to them, they are out of step with this generation of students who are about to enter adulthood in an America undergoing profound social change.

Curator's note
High School is a film that is bigger than its name might suggest.

Filmed using direct cinema techniques over a five-week period in 1968, it’s this moment in time that elevates the film. At this time, America was at war in Vietnam, the sexual revolution was underway, and the women's liberation movement was gathering momentum. During the film's production, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.

What the teachers of Northeast High School might not realise is that they’re trying to teach a new generation in an America that is vastly different to the one they grew up in. And while the students are getting an education, it doesn't seem to be from the classroom.