DOCUMENTING HISTORY FOR SEVEN COLLEGE-BOUND FIRST-GENERATION STUDENTS
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SYNOPSIS
WHAT WILL HAPPEN REMAINS TO BE SEEN.
Admission Possible follows seven high-achieving, first-generation college applicants from a single NYC public high school as they strive to secure a future once unimaginable for their immigrant families.
In a landscape reshaped by the pandemic, Supreme Court rulings ending affirmative action and student-loan forgiveness, and the broader challenges facing immigrants in the U.S., these students confront overwhelming odds. Debates over testing, early admissions, and legacy preferences add to the stakes.
With their futures on the line, their resilience and determination are put to the test. Admission Possible captures their urgent, deeply human fight for access and equity in higher education.
https://vimeo.com/1120856904/aaabf6de0c?fl=pl&fe=sh
Winner, Best Documentary Feature
– Berkshire International Film Festival
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LORA
LORA
Lora is an academic standout. She wrestles with the weight of her family’s war-torn history. Her mother, an ethnic Albanian Muslim, fled the war in Kosovo after witnessing her home and family destroyed. Meanwhile, her father, also Albanian, grew up in the Bronx, dropping out of school early and staying close to his childhood home to support his family after his own father passed away. Like many children of refugee families, Lora faces the challenge of unraveling her family’s past while concealing her emotions as she tries to plan for her own future.
Can Lora’s ambitions land her a spot in a prestigious school, or will the burden of perfection become too overwhelming?
LEWIS
LEWIS
Lewis has a radiant smile that hides a sensitive side behind his reserved nature. His Ecuadorian-Puerto Rican heritage, coupled with his parents’ amicable separation, shaped his empathetic outlook, especially towards friends with challenging home lives. The recent arrival of a newborn sibling on his mother’s side and his father’s demanding physical occupation in Spanish Harlem, serve as catalysts for Lewis’ ambition to contribute to his family’s well-being through the pursuit of higher education.
Given his parents’ busy schedules, will Lewis choose to venture away for college, or will he prioritize staying near his family, especially with the arrival of his new and only sibling?
KAMANI
KAMANI
At 6’5″, Kamani exudes leadership and often jokes about his last name: it’s literally “Confident.” A basketball injury disrupted his sophomore year. He struggles with his identity as a young black man in an ever-growing complex world. With separated parents, his Haitian father and older sisters have high expectations, while his Trinidadian mother is filled with worry and concern of what will happen to Kamani when he leaves home for college.
Can Kamani live up to his family’s bold last name, or will he succumb to the weight of high expectations?
GABY
GABY
Gaby is a dynamic force and the youngest of the group. She immerses herself in all activities with enthusiasm. She founded the school’s newspaper, oversees the yearbook, and is a mentor in the school’s Big Sibling program. Her infectious upbeat demeanor contrasts with the challenges she faces at home, living with her Peruvian immigrant mother, grandmother, and extended family urging her to stay nearby, and a Vietnamese father preoccupied with raising a second family.
Will Gaby embrace the chance to attend college far away or yield to family expectations to stay closer to home?
SOPHIA
SOPHIA
Sophia is a gifted writer whose resilient exterior conceals a compassionate soul. Her ever-changing hairstyles symbolize her adaptability. Sophia handles a challenging home situation, living with an Ivy-league educated Dominican mother, a grandmother with dementia, and an older brother with his own challenges. Contending with her mother’s dreams for an elite education and her father’s preference for her to choose a new path, Sophia faces dilemmas about her academic future.
Will Sophia leverage her legacy status at one of the nation’s top universities or seek her fit elsewhere?
HOWARD
HOWARD
Howard is fluent in Cantonese and lives with his mother, an immigrant from Hong Kong. He copes with familial expectations as he discovers new personal passions. He rebels against his father’s unmet desires and absence in his life and instead finds inspiration in the world of finance that was introduced to him by his mother who constantly worries about money. Howard’s interests span cars, fashion, hairdressing, and biking throughout the city with his friends.
Will Howard bow to his parents’ expectations or will he find his own voice during this introspective journey?
AYANA
AYANA
Ayana is a free spirit, who contends with family complexities, a strict upbringing, and self-acceptance issues. Her mother’s Jamaican-influenced perspectives and her Guyanese father’s frequent reminders that she looks different from his Indian family leave her confused about her own identity. Although she finds solace in an older sister’s mentoring, Ayana is constantly confronted by their clashing personalities.
Will familial pressures and financial concerns stifle Ayana’s dreams, or will she draw enough inspiration from her sister to carve her own path?
This is the
true story
of 7 students
from the same
public high school
striving to
get into college.
Find out
what happens
as they each
face challenges
in pursuit
of their dreams.
They are trailblazers in their immigrant families, and the first students in 60 years to apply to college without affirmative action programs.
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JEANNIE FERRARI
PRINCIPAL
Jeannie has been at the school for more than 20 years, and was a Spanish teacher before she became the principal. She prefers performance-based assessment tasks to testing, and has emphasized the power of a college education to break the cycle of poverty.
More recently, Jeannie has found herself defending her unconventional philosophy from a growing influx of more traditional parents.
JENNIFER ALMONOR
SCHOOL COUNSELOR
Jennifer started at the school in fall 2019 – just before the pandemic changed everything. She was new to college counseling and had to adapt to working remotely from home, managing her duties with limited technology experience, and caring for her young family and mother. Jennifer is herself a first-generation college graduate. Unfortunately, she had to take a medical leave midway through this year’s application season – making an already stressful process even more uncertain.
BILL SHORT
VOLUNTEER COLLEGE COUNSELOR
Bill began as the school’s volunteer college counselor in September 2003. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Founder & President of The Short List, an independent college counseling practice, he has spent more than two decades helping students gain admission to highly selective colleges and universities. At Humanities Prep, he has guided every successive senior class through the college application process, coordinating college visits, advising on applications and financial aid, and providing one-on-one support seldom found in New York City public schools.
JAMALI MOSES
SOCIAL WORKER
Jamali, has been at the school for 12 years, offering support to students through an approach based on restorative justice that keeps students in school rather than putting them out on the street. She leads groups that address the minority and female experiences, showing students how their choices shape their own lives and those of their families.
Jamali is a formidable, compassionate presence – the glue that holds the school together.
“Few College Admissions Cycles Have Been As Tumultuous As This One.”
– CNBC
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CYNTHIA WADE
Executive Producer
Cynthia Wade is an Academy Award–winning and Emmy Award–winning filmmaker known for powerful, character-driven storytelling. She directed and produced the Oscar-winning Freeheld (HBO, Sundance Winner) and the Oscar-nominated Mondays at Racine (HBO), as well as the Emmy-winning The Flagmakers (Disney+, Critics Choice Nominee, Oscar Shortlist). Cynthia was the showrunner and director of the 2023 Netflix docuseries MerPeople, which explores the high-stakes world of underwater performers and holds a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Her Emmy-nominated documentary Grit (PBS) earned 12 film festival awards, while Born Sweet (Sundance Winner) was Oscar-shortlisted for its intimate portrayal of resilience. Her earlier credits include Shelter Dogs (HBO), Grist for the Mill (Cinemax), Living the Legacy (Sundance Channel), and the Primetime Emmy-winning Growing Hope Against Hunger (PBS) about food insecurity in America. Cynthia also directed three episodes of Apple TV+’s Critics Choice–nominated series Gutsy featuring Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, and co-directed Generation Startup (Netflix). Cynthia is a graduate of Smith College (BA in Theater, cum laude) and Stanford University (MA in Documentary.
MATTHEW SYRETT
DIRECTOR / STORY PRODUCER
Matthew Syrett is a filmmaker best known for producing the Academy Award–winning film Freeheld and serving as lead story producer for Netflix’s MerPeople. His creative work has garnered top honors, including Oscars, Emmys, and Sundance awards, with credits across HBO, PBS, Cinemax, Netflix, and TNT. Matthew’s storytelling background is grounded in his MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute, where he was named a winner of AFI’s prestigious Writers Room Ready competition, recognizing the top five emerging television writers of his graduating class.
In addition to his work in film and television, Matthew has held senior leadership roles across media, advertising, and technology. He served as Vice President at Grey Advertising, Senior Product Manager at IMDb (an Amazon company), co-founder of the financial services firm Marstone, and VP of Product at Rakuten USA.
BOWIE ALEXANDER
PRODUCER / DIRECTOR /
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Bowie Alexander is a filmmaker whose first feature film Handle with Extreme Care premiered at the Sheffield International Film Festival and was selected for the IDFA. He directed, shot and edited the film, which will be released on a streaming service later this year.
He was a lead cinematographer on HBO’s The Vow for two seasons. He also just produced and was a lead cinematographer on Defiant, a Ukrainian War film that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2023.
SASHA FRIEDLANDER
EDITOR
Sasha is an Emmy nominated documentary film editor and director who has won over 20 international awards. She has nearly two decades of editing and directing experience on a diverse range of independent and commercial projects which have screened, streamed, and broadcast globally.
Sasha’s notable editing credits include Emmy-nominated documentary Grit (PBS, 2019), which earned 12 festival awards. I‘m Your Venus (Netflix, 2024), Merpeople (Netflix, 4-part docuseries, 2023), Good Enough Ancestor (2024), which won Best Editing Award at Centre Film Festival, and Where Heaven Meets Hell (PBS, 2013), which earned 5 festival awards.
Sasha is a 2016 Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab Fellow. She holds a BA from UCLA and an MFA in Social Documentary Film from the School of Visual Arts.
AKIL GIBBONS
STORY PRODUCER
Akil Gibbons is a Sundance Award-winning and Emmy-nominated film director and producer. His work has been distributed by HBO, BET, CNN, The Daily Show, Paramount+, and Vice Media. He directed and story-produced the pilot episode of HBO’s Level Playing Field, which earned an Outstanding Series Emmy nomination in 2022. Gibbons also contributed to the FBI counter-terrorism film (T)ERROR, which won an Emmy and a Sundance award in 2015.
His debut feature, Paper City – Stop the School to Prison Pipeline, inspired by the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was made available as an educational resource for underserved schools and communities. Gibbons’ upcoming projects include producing films with Roc Nation and Time Studios, as well as a series for ITVS/PBS directed by Darius Clark Monroe titled Dallas, 2019.
At Vice Media, Gibbons produced and hosted films that garnered millions of views and viral media impressions, focusing on topics such as civil rights, mass incarceration, technology, and hip-hop culture.
JIM CZARNECKI
PRODUCER
Jim is an award-winning producer, most well-known as the Producer of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-11 and the Academy Award-winning and Cannes Palme d’Or documentary Bowling for Columbine. Jim won an Emmy Award for Michael Moore’s TV NATION and Vice’s VICE ON HBO. He was nominated for a Producers Guild of America award for Soundtrack for the Revolution.
Jim’s other Documentary Feature credits include Chris Smith’s Jim and Andy, Jeff Feuerzeig’s AUTHOR: The JT Leroy Story, SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Manta of Rock about photographer Mick Rock, and the Cannes and Telluride selected Red Army. For Harmony Korine, Jim produced the only American Dogme 95 film Julien Donkey Boy starring Werner Herzog, Chloe Sevigny and Ewen Bremner.
Jim has served as Head of Production for Monami Entertainment, Vice Media, and This Machine Filmworks.
BRIAN OFFUTT
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Brian was SVP of Operations for Viacom’s Nickelodeon Group. Prior to that he served as Chief Operating Officer of Broadway Video Entertainment, a global media group owned by Lorne Michaels, creator and executive producer of Saturday Night Live. He also served as Managing Director at MediaLink and Chief Workforce Innovation & Operations Officer at Weber Shandwick.
Brian is the President of one of the nation’s premier entertainment lighting companies. He also serves on the Board of Project Healthy Minds, the organization that hosted Prince Harry and Megan Markel’s ground-breaking Archewell Foundation Parents’ Summit, leading the national discussion on creating a safer online world for young people.
Winner, Audience Award Honorable Mention – Documentary Feature
– Berkshire International Film Festival
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