A TV SERIES FOR FAMILIES TO WATCH TOGETHER

Created and produced by the revolutionary teen-driven Youth Documentary Academy, OUR TIME is a new series for public television that premieres on Rocky Mountain PBS on September 16, 2021.

Films in the series feature stories about the critical issues of our time through the eyes of young people. These character-driven stories address social issues around race and colorism, disability, teen suicide, gender and sexuality, domestic violence, family life and immigration.

Out of Our Heads: Teens Tell How Hair Shapes Our Existence

Hair is not a simple topic for many Americans.

For many Americans, hair is not a simple matter. It can shape our identities

or it can challenge the very notion of how we define beauty. Hair is a multimillion

dollar industry. It can be political. OUR TIME filmmakers Shaienne

Knox and Isabella Recca examine the role hair plays in their own lives and

communities. In Out of Our Heads, 16-year-old Knox explores the ways in

which African American girls and women style their hair, offering robust

racial observations regarding weave and relaxed hair as commodities that

hew to white standards of beauty. By interviewing her mother, grandmother

and friends, Knox reveals personal, nuanced, and sometimes blistering

views on what comprises “good hair” among African Americans. In Bella,

17-year-old Isabella Recca tests her own teenage girl-beauty standards by

shaving her head. Without an important signifier of femininity and status

among white girls her age, she is forced to confront how much power to

vest in societal definitions of beauty and self worth. Stay tuned at the end

for filmmaker interviews.

“YDA provides the resources and, more importantly, the safe space for young people to share their stories of significance to them. Without YDA, I wouldn’t have felt the confidence to analyze my feelings at that age, much less share those feelings on a national stage.”–Isabella Recca

Shaienne Knox applied to YDA wanting to make a film exploring black hair: the variety of hair styles that African American girls wear, the commodification of black hair, the pressure to straighten and conform to white standards of beauty, and the role of hair in a political movement for change. Shaienne’s access to an intergenerational sample of African American girls and women – and an intimacy with which she enabled in her interviews – bring depth and dimension to this topic.

Isabella Recca is now in her twenties, and her interest in film, writing, and communications persists. Bella views her younger self with the ever-evolving perspective, and her time with YDA continues to impact and influence her career and life-path. At sixteen, Bella’s involvement in theatre played an integral role within her film BELLA, an exploration of gender policing and societal definitions of beauty. The young filmmaker turns the camera on herself and the insecurities around self image that emerge when she dares to break the rules of gender expression. Bella is also active in her school’s senate and hopes to study film production after she graduates from high school in 2017.

Other Episodes

Help teens tell their stories by donating today. Your donation to YDA means so much.

Who gets to tell their story in America?

Founded in 2013, the Youth Documentary Academy (YDA) has pioneered youth-driven storytelling that seeks to discover and honor underrepresented stories while raising voices that have traditionally been overlooked. YDA offers intensive mentorship to aspiring teen filmmakers 14-18 years old. Through rigorous hands-on training in both the technical and artistic aspects of filmmaking and storytelling, YDA students receive the tools and support to hone their stories and produce professional quality documentaries. When complete, YDA works closely with filmmakers to distribute their work to local and national audiences. YDA’s 100 films have become a go-to for educators, advocates and PBS programmers alike.

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Major Funding

The Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust
Mary Anne & Steve Walldorf
Betsy & Warren Dean

Additional Funding

The Youth Documentary Academy relies on direct funding and donations from our sponsors. If you appreciate the OUR TIME series, please consider supporting the Youth Documentary Academy. Your donation makes a difference, and makes future seasons of the PBS series OUR TIME possible.

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