My hope is that KILLING ED will enlighten a nation with a shocking first-hand look inside these troubled, publicly funded institutions - Director, Mark Hall
Austin,Texas (PRWEB) April 27, 2016
Following its week long opening run in New York in late March and a closely followed community preview in Southern California drawing nearly 1,000 people, Visual Truth Projects’ provocative, feature-length exposé documentary on Gülen charter schools, KILLING ED, is finally coming to select theaters via the TUGG.com platform and is announcing a DVD release date of May 1. Ironically, May 1 is the beginning of “National Charter Schools Week”. The film was also recently nominated in the Best Documentary category, as well as in the World Premiere category in the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival where producer/director Mark S. Hall made an appearance.
Sparking fierce debate on social media and blogs pre-release, KILLING ED is now being booked for screenings in Cleveland, Atlanta, Dallas, Florida, and Houston via TUGG and—answering the demand nationally and internationally among documentary watchers and stakeholders alike—the film will on May 1 be available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble stores and within a couple of weeks: Walmart.com.
Even in its limited release, the film has been the subject of controversy, speculation, and denials—with pundits from Huffington Post to the Turkish nationwide publication the Daily Sabah to Alex Jones Show to the Texas Charter School Association alternately hailing the film as “important” and “The Film That Texas Doesn’t Want You to See” with claims it has faced “veiled censorship.”
Presumably, KILLING ED is causing heartburn because it uncovers a shocking fact: that over 150 publicly funded, privately owned charter schools in America—supported by some politicians, consultants, and parents— serve as covert operations by a secretive Turkish cleric guilty a variety of inconsistencies surrounding immigration issues, treatment of teachers and students, labor laws, and more. Hall, who previously directed the award-winning SUSHI: THE GLOBAL CATCH (2012), uses KILLING ED to expose the troubling findings and questionable motives of the largest charter school network in the country—the Gülen Movement—which receives over $500,000,000 a year directly from American taxpayers.
Involving 60,000 American school children, 200+ politicians, and investigations by the FBI and Congress, KILLING ED untangles an intentionally opaque reality: how the "Gülen movement” operated by Turkish exile Fetullah Gülen, has gained political power and financial reward in the USA through a lack of transparency and regulation in the ever-growing charter school movement that has become a part of America’s education system.
Festival Recognition
KILLING ED was a hotly anticipated film for the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, which presents an annual program of documentaries, features & shorts—voted as one of the “Top 25 Coolest Film Festivals In The World” by MovieMaker Magazine. Last year, Marcelina Cravat’s ANGEL AZUL took home the Best Documentary award.
In 2015, KILLING ED was featured at the Tallgrass Film Festival, after which the director of acquisitions, Shan Jabara, hailed the film “a hit” and that the documentary “aroused great interest and concern for the subject of the Gulen Movement’s charter schools and their rapid expansion.”
About Mark S. Hall
Mark S Hall is a documentary filmmaker and lawyer based in Austin, Texas —whose curiosity and unusual set of skills drive him to tell complex stories for the public good. His new feature-length documentary film KILLING ED discusses the corruption and corrosive influence of a little-known, global Islamic group based in Pennsylvania known as the Gülen Movement that operates one of the largest network of taxpayer-funded charter schools in the U.S. that are the worst-case-scenario—schools with questionable academic, labor, and H1-B visa standards.
Hall’s previous documentary feature, SUSHI: THE GLOBAL CATCH, premiered in June 2011 at the Seattle International Film Festival where it won a Special Jury Prize. SUSHI examines the traditions, global growth and potential consequences of what a cuisine in a rapidly globalizing world. The film has screened in theaters, television and at prominent festivals in over 40 countries worldwide. It received a major market theatrical release in August, 2012 through the New York distributor, Kino Lorber, Inc. Hall’s television-focused work includes MISSION ON SEVEN (2010), a half-hour documentary exploring the film archive at the Harry Ransom Center, which won a Platinum Award at the Houston Worldfest Film Festival in 2010. He lives in Austin, Texas.
http://www.KillingEd.com | Facebook.com/KillingEd | @KillingEdFilm | tugg.com
