Mad Hot Ballroom

Twenty years after it first charmed its way into audiences’ hearts, DOC NYC presents a retrospective screening of Marilyn Agrelo and Amy Sewell’s classic about NYC public school fifth-graders competing in the extracurricular world of ballroom dancing. The filmmakers followed students from a school in each of Bensonhurst, Tribeca, and Washington Heights as they learned about ambition, discipline, respect, and perspective—all to the beats of merengue, rumba, tango, and other rhythms. The film exists as a snapshot of a tolerant and respectful time, with expressions of such values seemingly in much shorter supply today. Some of the students featured in the film, now in their 30s, are expected to attend alongside some of their former teachers.