Fathom Events often speaks to the half of the country Hollywood ignores.
The special events company screened Christmas with The Chosen last year, for example. The faith-based film snared big box office numbers in the heartland.
The latest Fathom Events premiere may unite both red and blue states, though.
Whose Children Are They? is a blistering attack on public schools in the 21st century. The documentary, playing in theaters nationwide March 14, excoriates schools for indoctrinating children in Black Lives Matter rhetoric, Critical Race Theory and more. Meanwhile, both scholastic achievement, and the young students themselves, get lost in the progressive shuffle.
Deborah Flora, a producer on the film and key part of its cast, says parents have had enough.
Flora, a Colorado resident running for Senate as a Republican, shared how the movie came to be with Hollywood in Toto and why it could be an educational game changer.
HiT: Whose Children Are They? couldn’t be more timely … when did the project officially begin and was there a specific incident that sparked its creation?
Deborah Flora: I launched Parents United America over three years ago after being one of hundreds of parents whose voices were ignored when we waited hours to testify against the explicit and age-inappropriate Comprehensive Sex Ed bill. I then introduced Curriculum Transparency legislation which was immediately sent to the kill committee.
That confirmed it was time to galvanize parents by dragging the truth into the light with a full expose of all that is going on in our public school system.
When we flipped our Douglas County School Board and my testimony went viral, we knew that this parental uprising is a movement that if brought to critical mass, will at last achieve educational freedom and protect the innocence of all children.
That is the goal of the documentary.
HiT: Whose Children Are They? may seem right-leaning to some, but several topics in the film have bipartisan appeal. Can you expand on that big tent approach?
Flora: What I have found as President of Parents United America is that it doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, you are a Mom and a Dad first. Having the right to know what your children are being taught is fundamental and non-partisan.
The politicized straw man arguments don’t hold up anymore. The vast majority of concerned citizens are for the full and unfiltered teaching of history, but not the ideological agenda of CRT which is based on the 1619 Project which even its creators admit is not history.
In addition, we are all for Reproductive Biology taught at the appropriate age, but there is a widespread rejection of sexualizing children as young as kindergarten. The unifying principle is that parents, not the state, are the ultimate authority in their children’s lives.
HiT: Parents are becoming more active across the country regarding public schools, but the entrenched teachers unions aren’t going away. What are some steps parents can take moving forward?
Flora: We are pro-teacher which is why we want them to know that there are alternatives for insurance and they do not have to pay dues to an organization that often bullies them and uses their funds for ideological agendas.
For concerned citizens, they can elect school board candidates who are not beholden to union money, and stand with elected officials who will push for curriculum transparency and tax dollars to follow the student not the system.
Parents can make sure they know what is happening in their own children’s schools, and if they attempt to shut them out, then find alternative options for their children’s education. It is time for true educational freedom that will help every child from every walk of life flourish.
HiT: Why did your team embrace the Fathom Events release plan? For those who miss the film’s theatrical screening will there be other ways to catch it?
Flora: We know that this is a nationwide movement, and so this release in over 750 theaters across the country is key. However, this film will have a long life including streaming and DVDs.
If someone is unable to attend this evening, they can still sign up on the website WhoseChildrenAreThey.com to be notified of the next opportunities. We simply wanted to create a tool that can be shared far and wide to empower Americans to stand together.
The film will have a long life.
HiT: Some documentaries impact the culture in outsized ways. No matter what one thinks of Al Gore’s mission, his Inconvenient Truth made a major splash. The Blackfish documentary caused headaches for Seaworld. Can your film similarly rock the culture? How?
Flora: We truly believe that this comprehensive expose of our public school system will galvanize concerned citizens across the country to stand together for true education reform. The radical shift that has been being implemented in our schools over decades has only occurred because parents have been shut out, teachers have been bullied, and concerned citizens have been unaware.
COVID was the first step leading to the parents uprising in our country as they at last saw their children’s curriculum, and our goal is for this documentary to be the tool that pushes it to the tipping point so that people of good will stand together and demand a return to education not indoctrination.
[Cross-posted from Hollywood in Toto]
