Austin Film Festival Best Documentary Feature Winner: Grown in Detroit

However hard it was for you to make it to your high school each morning, the teen moms at Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit likely have it harder. In Grown in Detroit, the principal says that it takes some girls 2 hours and multiple bus routes to get to school (especially since the auto lobby held back any progress on Detroit's mass transit system). Catherine Ferguson Academy is unique in that it is only one of a few schools in the nation geared exclusively towards pregnant teens/teen moms. Another factor that makes this school unique: they have their own urban, organic farm.

The educators at the school are dedicated to providing young mothers with the skills and education to make it on their own; the school's farm—which contains an orchard, a horse, a pig, and an apiary, among other things—offers many ways to do so. Grown in Detroit focuses on the school and some of the girls who attend it. The filmmakers show us various slices-of-life (an expectant mother being seen by the school nurse, a 16-year-old mother of two kissing her daughter's booboo) while we are introduced to the farm and the principal's hopes for its growth. The students learn about grading apples that they have picked, making cider from them, working with bees, milking a goat, and selling their wares. They also learn some less tangible life lessons as well.

We expected the film to focus primarily on the farm, but it's more like a supporting actor; the faculty, staff and students are truly the stars of this doc. The film is quite touching and leaves the viewer with a great sense of hope for these girls and their futures, despite Detroit's dire economic situation.

Grown in Detroit won this year's Best Documentary Feature at the Austin Film Festival and will be screening one last time at 7 p.m. tonight (Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek) with the filmmakers, Manfred and Mascha Poppenk, in attendance.