Brooklyn Castle is a documentary about I.S. 318, an inner-city school where more than 65% of students live below the federal poverty level but has the highest ranked junior high chess team in the nation.
With Brooklyn Castle it's really nice to see so many young, positive minds at play in the world, and to cheer on so many smiling children dreaming of enlightened futures.
...provides a corrective to the popular image of American schools as obsessed with sports and popularity, and it makes the strongest possible case for funding after-school activities.
New York Magazine/Vulture
November 14, 2012
It's not To Sir, With Love: It's fierce ambition, the channeling of emotion, and hours of drilling.
The I.S. 318 team? A delightfully motley, vulnerable, multicultural bunch, whose addiction to chess has allowed them higher aspirations for top high schools and, eventually, college and careers. You will root for them like crazy.
