My So-Called High School Rank / FIlm School Radio interview with Co-directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg

KUCI: Film School

MY SO-CALLED HIGH SCHOOL RANK goes deep into the lives of high school students in three radically disparate communities as they navigate the pressures around college while staging a musical, until seismic events upend their dreams and expectations. Months before the college admissions scandal made headlines in 2019, students in Sacramento, CA were busy creating a new musical that drew from their own experiences as talented but very anxious students – all focused on getting into the same top schools. RANKED, the musical, premiered just weeks before Federal charges were levied against Rick Singer, the mastermind behind the college bribing scandal the FBI dubbed Varsity Blues. As word about the musical spread, schools around the country reached out to stage it with their students. The film features the “Ranked” creators Kyle Holmes and David Taylor Gomes, as well as students, parents and staff of Granite Bay High School and Cupertino High School in California, Fordham High School for the Arts in New York City, and Ripley High School in West Virginia. Co-directors New York filmmakers Ricki Stern (The Devil Came on Horseback, Surviving Jeffrey Epstein) and Annie Sundberg (Reversing Roe, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work), join us on how they went about capturing this generation’s shared, hopeful fortitude across America’s many divides. Streaming on hbo.com starting 11/29 - My So-Called High School Rank Is now available on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. More on the films of Ricki & Annie: breakthrufilms.org