A Most Beautiful Thing

About the Film (source: https://www.amostbeautifulthing.com/the-film/) The movie A MOST BEAUTIFUL THING, based on Cooper’s memoir, chronicles the first African American high school rowing team in this country (made up of young men, many of whom were in rival gangs from the West Side of Chicago), all coming together to row in the same boat.

A MOST BEAUTIFUL THING explores not only the safety these young men found on the water (where, as the captain reflected, “we were in a place where we could not hear the sound of sirens”), but the trauma of violence and cyclical poverty, examining how these young men were able to support each other in reimagining a different future for themselves, and how rowing and the water provided the backdrop for that opportunity.

Paresky Auditorium