Producers Tamra Raven and Aaron Steinberg shine a light on Chicago’s Educare with TOMORROW’S HOPE

Almost everyone says they want a better future and education for their children. But when it comes time to getting it done, other concerns often push the kids to the backburner, perhaps because children can’t lobby for themselves. Thankfully, they have advocates in companies like the Saul Zeantz Charitable Foundation, which funds documentaries focused on early childhood education. For their second feature, Tomorrow’s Hope, the foundation turned to producers Tamra Raven and Aaron Steinberg, the latter also serving as music composer. The film focuses on the first high school graduates to have come from Educare, an innovative preschool in the Chicago housing projects that focuses on socialization.

Subsequent to the movie’s screening at SXSW EDU, Films Gone Wild caught up with Raven and Steinberg to ask them our Ten Burning Questions:

FILMS GONE WILD: Tell me how this film came together. Was it always targeted at the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation, or was it a project you had before that that just found the right home?

TAMRA: Actually, the Foundation had been interested for a while in exploring the idea of making a documentary about this education community on the South Side of Chicago. They approached me and asked about my take on it and what I thought was possible. Right away, I knew this was a project that I felt just had to happen – it was really a fit for what’s important to me, and I felt like these are the kinds of stories that need to be widely shared. Powerful, unforgettable personalities with a vision for making the world a better place for children and families . . . sign me up! Sure enough, surprises awaited us as we delved into it all, both in terms of filmmaking and the overall story arc as well. Of course, the environment this story unfolds in is – and was – unrelentingly challenging, but the people you meet in the film found a way to deliver a completely different message to these kids: “you matter.”




FGW: My understanding is this is only the second film the Zaentz foundation has funded. Had you seen the first, and did it make a difference in how you put yours together?

AARON: This film was a very different beast in terms of approach top-to-bottom (though I had a great time scoring the music for their Starting At Zero, directed by Willa Kammerer). In Tomorrow’s Hope, the approach is about bringing you heart-first into this particular community. Once you really get to know the people in the film, then what they confront feels personal. Then those broader kinds of themes hit you differently – they sting in a way you’re not likely to forget.

Part of what we understand the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation is looking to do is to use filmmaking to get people to think more and care more overall about how access to education (specifically early education) is essential to the concept of caring for kids everywhere. As one of the parents in the film points out, kids “are our future.” It’s vexing how this seems like something that everyone wants to make happen – and yet, as a country we keep dropping the ball.

FGW: Percussion is such an important part of this film’s soundtrack. Did that come after seeing Jamal do his drumming, or was it always part of the idea?

AARON: For any music composer, I think the first step in the process is just letting the story kind of marinate before you start reacting to it – and then, particular sonic textures and musical ideas can start to emerge on their own, in a way. Since this film includes live, onscreen drumline performances from Jamal, one of its main characters, for me, following that thread just felt genuine – it felt almost like a gift, from a musical standpoint! Also, I enjoyed batting around ideas with one of the editors, Micho (Mohamed El Manasterly) and director Thomas Morgan. As we progressed, we all seemed particularly aligned about where the music was going, and that was a great feeling.




FGW: Do you consider Kaotic Drumline to be a spinoff of Tomorrow’s Hope?

TAMRA: I think we can consider Kaotic Drumline: Drumming With A Difference (a short film, at festivals now) to be a companion piece to Tomorrow’s Hope. It stands on its own of course but making the connection between the two adds to the experience. After we had wrapped on Tomorrow’s Hope, we went back and pitched the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation about making a short film specifically about the drumline from the film (which features Jamal Poindexter and his father Jamie Poindexter, the group’s musical director).

I produced, Aaron directed, and we were able also to get (Tomorrow’s Hope) cinematographer Doug Clevenger to come back for more – very fortunately, because Doug’s awesome work on this gave us so much to work with when it came time to edit! Kaotic Drumline is such an engaging band, and they’ve made their mark in Chicago – so we felt confident their story was definitely going to resonate. Obviously, you have the visceral impact of the musical experience, but then there’s an underlying social message in what Kaotic is about as well.




FGW: At under an hour, this film offers a taste of what could be an even bigger story. Any plans in mind to turn it into a longer feature?

TAMRA: An ongoing question for us from start to finish with this project was “what’s the best way to structure this experience?” There’s a lot we had to weave together, from the historical aspects of Chicago’s “Plan For Transformation” (in which the city tore down housing projects) to the personal journeys of the kids and the educators. We could’ve made a mini-series or something! But in the end, we clung tight to the concept of immediacy as a storytelling virtue.

We felt like if we could just get audiences to connect and care, then we probably would have achieved a lot of what we’d hoped to do, even in terms of bringing awareness to the larger story in the backdrop. Yeah, it’s been fun having the film play on the big screen at cinemas at film festivals, and of course the musical sequences are pretty awesome in that context, but ultimately this seems like a story that makes a lot of sense as a television experience, and so we’re pursuing broadcast opportunities right now.

FGW: You make Chicago look more beautiful than it usually does in movies. Was it luck that you got great weather, or a more pointed design to match the colorful aesthetic of the school, no matter what it took?

TAMRA: Like you mentioned – in the film, the colorful, nurturing presence of the school being smack dab in the middle of a foreboding environment – well, that’s a key theme. Your surroundings don’t necessarily define who you are, and our team clued into that concept. And beyond just that, (cinematographer) Doug Clevenger and (director) Thomas Morgan let their connection to the people in the film guide them artistically throughout.

FGW: How did you select the kids to follow? Were there any concerns at any point that the ones you wanted, or their families, might not want to fully participate? 

TAMRA: Nothing is ever quite as simple as you’d like it to be, right? Working out who we were going to follow and how took a little doing! But since ongoing family engagement is a central part of how these educators made a difference for these kids and families, we didn’t encounter the kind of resistance that might be more typical for a project of this kind.




FGW: Educare (the school in the film) seems to put so much emphasis on socialization at a young age. Have you kept up with how that’s been affected by an age of social distancing and masking? Could that be the next movie, by you or someone else?

AARON: You’ve touched on a pervasive and huge question. Kids of all ages seem to have felt the effects of the pandemic in pretty distressing ways, we know that there’s been a very large uptick in anxiety amongst children. Along with all the other problems the covid-era has created, social distancing has been really tough on kids’ social development – and we’ve talked with many parents about this. But we’re not too sure yet what the long-term effects are going to be. Future work for us may include some explorations into all that, but we also hope other filmmakers are taking it on as well – it’s so complex and important.

FGW: When a movie like the recent Candyman uses the history of Chicago housing projects as a basis for a horror movie, does that association, as far as you can tell, help, hurt, or have no real effect as far as general public awareness goes?


AARON: We think it’s helpful in terms of awareness and we feel the Candyman movies raise important questions weaved into the fun of watching horror movies.   

Popcorn or candy? 

AARON: Popcorn.

TAMRA: Why, oh why, can’t we have both?