In the 2020 Sundance documentary Us Kids, director Kim A. Snyder chronicles how a group of high school students got thousands of young people all over the country talking about the impact of gun violence, and even made activism cool.
On Valentine’s Day, 2018, a gunman killed 17 people at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and injured another 17. In the days and weeks following the attack, a group of Stoneman Douglas students started speaking out against gun violence, holding rallies, making appearances on news programs and hosting a Washington D.C. demonstration, March For Our Lives.
Snyder followed these student-activists over 18 months as March For Our Lives became a national movement to prevent gun violence. Us Kids is a coming-of-age story about young people dealing with horrific trauma, and how they are using it as a catalyst to try to make sure no other students experience a similar tragedy.
