**Winner of the NY Loves Film Best Documentary Award, Tribeca Film Festival, New York 2008**
**Winner of the Audience Choice Award, International Black DocuFest, Atlanta 2008**
ZONED IN, 90 mins, directed & produced by Daniela Zanzotto.
From the Bronx to the Ivy League and back again. Nine years in one extraordinary life.
You're starting your teen years; two older brothers in prison, father at 15, close to being a high school drop-out and then an incredible journey starts. Over the course of nine years, director Daniela Zanzotto accompanies a young Black man, Daniel Nartey, on a path that takes him from a South Bronx public high school to an elite Rhode Island Ivy league University and back again as he discovers himself and his life's purpose. It is a compelling tale of survival, ambition, achievement, disillusionment, and ultimately a tempered sense of success and fulfillment.
"You always get taught you got to escape. That in order for me to achieve anything I must get away from everybody else that's been like me."
A stark portrait of disenfranchisement as well as a personal journey of discovery, ZONED IN offers the absolute gift of Daniel himself, a rare mix of charismatic and entirely natural story-telling given to thoughtful self-questioning and reassessment of his identity and priorities. His voiceover talks us through the trials and tribulations of his education and personal life accompanied by a music track by turns subdued and propulsive. The dynamic moving camera captures the drive, the trepidation, the nervous energy of not only Daniel but also the South Bronx that defined and transformed him as a high school student. The film is a fascinating combination of first-person voiceover, direct address, fly-on-the-wall observation, and snatches of life on the streets of the Bronx as well as the paved paths of Brown.
"The Bronx inspired me, and I felt the need to inspire it."
Music supervision by Create Fresh. Original score composed by Christopher Grande Jr (Insight).
Contact details for director/producer Daniela: [email protected]
