Brooklyn Castle

Director:  Katie Dellamaggiore
USA 101’, 2011, color
English with Turkish subtitles 

Intermediate School 318 is an inner-city school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where more than 65 percent of the students are from homes with incomes below the federal poverty level. I.S. 318 also happens to have the most winning junior high school chess team in the nation. The school has cultivated many of the nation's highest ranked chess players, and if Albert Einstein, who was rated 1800, were to join the chess team, he'd only rank fifth. Chess has helped transform the school from one cited in 2003 as a "school in need of improvement" to one of New York City's highest achieving middle schools. But a series of recession-driven public school budget cuts now threaten to undermine those hard-won successes. The film follows the challenges of five members of the chess team face in their personal lives as well as on the chessboard, and is as much about the sting of their losses as it is about the anticipation of their victories.

After the screening of Brooklyn Castle on Friday 28 February, a talk will be held with Michael Farris. Michael Farris is presently an instructor in the Faculty of Education at Mevlana University in Konya.   Before arriving in Konya in 2008, Michael worked as a site manager for Kid Chess, Inc. during which time he supervised class instruction and organized teams of coaches to facilitate instruction. The talk is free of admissions, and in English.