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DURHAM – “Raising Bertie”, a new film from debut director Margaret Byrne and Chicago’s award-winning documentary collective Kartemquin Films, makers of Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters, will world premiere at Full Frame Documentary Festival in Durham on April 9.

Set in Bertie County, a rural African American-led community in Eastern North Carolina, the film takes the viewer deep into the emotional lives of three young boys – Reginald “Junior” Askew, David “Bud” Perry, and Davonte “Dada” Harrell – as they face a number of challenges over six years as they grow into adults. All three will attend the world premiere.

This raw and starkly poetic longitudinal cinéma vérité film weaves the young men’s stories together as they navigate unemployment, institutional racism, violence, first love, fatherhood, death, and estrangement from family members and mentors, all while trying to define their identities.

Rural minorities like the youth in Bertie represent some of the nation’s most vulnerable and least visible. Like many rural areas, Bertie County struggles with a dwindling economy, a declining population and a high school graduation rate below the state average. The Perdue chicken processing plant is Bertie’s last major employer, and the 27 prisons that lay within a 100 miles of Bertie cast a long shadow. Bertie County is predominately African American – its challenges compounded by generations of economic and educational inequity, institutional racism and ancestral trauma.

The three main characters in the move met in real life while attending high school at The Hive, an alternative school for at-risk boys. There, Vivian Saunders, a passionate community activist from Bertie County at The Hive, attempts to provide a combination of respect, socio-emotional learning, and mentorship to help put these young men’s lives on track.

But, when budget shortfalls lead the Board of Education to close The Hive, Junior, Bud, and Dada must return to Bertie High School and a system that once failed them.

“I have never done anything like this and it was a new experience,” said Perry about filming the movie. “Sometimes I didn’t want to do it because I wasn’t used to being on camera and I was nervous. Margaret and Jon made me feel comfortable. My favorite moments from the film are from The Hive, graduation, prom, and cutting grass.

“I want a lot of kids to see Raising Bertie and see how the Hive started. They will see we live in the country and everybody doesn’t have a lot, but we do our best to have a good community,” he added.

“The experience of filming Raising Bertie was life changing. I grew from a kid who never spoke up for himself to a young man that can speak with confidence. I believe the sky’s the limit. My dream is to go to barber school and own my own business one day,” noted Harrell.

“I’m glad I can look back and see my younger days and see how it was for me back then, keeps me on the road I’m on today. And I got two very good friends out of it, Margaret and Jon,” Askew stated. “I love people. I’m a family man. I’m just like everyone else in the world. I may have made bad choices, but I’m not letting those choices determine the outcome of my life. I’m out here workin’, doin’ it.”

Partial funding has come from sources including the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the Southern Documentary Fund, along with support from IFP and Good Pitch Chicago, though for the majority of production Byrne, a single mother, self-financed the film.

“This film has been a labor of love. Over the last seven years, we have maintained close, trusting relationships with each family in the film. I love them and am honored that they trusted me, gave me an unfiltered window into their lives, and believed what we were doing was important,” said Byrne. “The individuals in this story are representative of their community and they matter. I’m so thrilled to be showing the film for the very first time in public at Full Frame.”

“Raising Bertie challenges us to see the value in lives too often ignored,” said Gordon Quinn, an Executive Producer on the film and Artistic Director of Kartemquin Films. “We always knew we had to premiere this film at Full Frame, a festival with which we have held a long and fond association over many years, and which is adept at facilitating the type of nuanced and multifaceted conversation Raising Bertie will generate here, and throughout the 2016 election year and beyond.”

Kartemquin is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization based in Chicago. www.kartemquin.com