Ballou a documentary film

From balloumovie.com:

"Ballou is a documentary film about the Ballou Senior High School Marching Ban from South East Washington DC. Ballou High School is a struggling inner city school where only 5% of its students go on after high school and graduate college. During the filming of this documentary 58 violent crimes occured within 1500 feet of the school and our producer was robbed at knife point and beaten on the door steps of another DC public school.

"The Ballou Marching Band is a positive force in the lives of the students and in the community. Under the direction of Mr. Darrell Watson, along with the help from his tireless, all volunteer staff, the Ballou Marching Band gives its students opportunities that they would not have otherwise had. Mr. Watson tries to instill, “life lessons,” as well as simply teaching music to give them the tools they need to succeed in life. Listen to this great WAMU radio audio clip on the Ballou Marching Band.

"The breadth of the documentary follows the band on a journey from band camp, to the National High Stepping Marching Band Competition in Birmingham, AL sponsored by Asymmetrix. It is a very personal story about the lives of the band members, the director Mr. Watson, and his hard working staff who are all striving to be an award winning marching band.

"Every school should have a band! " - DC Mayor Adrian Fenty

*Update - Washington, D.C.'s Darrell Watson and members from his Ballou High School Marching Band appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show on Friday, October 5th, 2007.

"This school is in one of the worst neighborhoods in the country and the guy is making such a huge difference," Ellen DeGeneres said in a press statement. "The students love him. There was a 50 percent drop-out rate before and now everybody's happy and creative."

Two filmmakers, Casey Calister & Michael Partray, decided to make a documentary of this story. They're trying to get it into the Annual Sundance Film Festival. After the band members' appearance on the show, the White House called the filmmakers about possibly screening the movie at the White House which took place on Thursday, October 11th, 2007.