Frames of Reference

Directed by: Justin Hall
Produced by: Olga Loginova

Stage:
- Post Production
Locations:
- Montana, United States,
- Burkina Faso,
- Belarus,
- Colombia,
- France,
- Japan,
- California, United States
Updated: February 12, 2026
Project Type:
- Feature
Project Style:
- Animated,
- Narrative/Doc Mix
Theme Subject:
- Adventure,
- Family,
- Social / Cultural

Logline

Frames of Referenceexplores 7 astonishingly diverse schools in 6 countries encountering immigrants, outlaws, and other communities cultivating kids' capabilities.

Clips

Frames of Reference Teaser

Synopsis

Should former addicts be able to teach children about substance abuse or when schools may begin to teach about identifying as transgender? Frames of Reference grants access to perspectives in education tackling hard questions like these through 7 global communities who are educating their children.

An animated narrator threads our schools together as she guides us through stunning footage of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, Belarus, Japan, Burkina Faso, France, Colombia,

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An animated narrator threads our schools together as she guides us through stunning footage of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, Belarus, Japan, Burkina Faso, France, Colombia, and The United States. The documentary speaks with distinct educators through a chorus of undervalued voices through 1-on-1 interviews. Subjects include educational outlaws and immigrants from within who contrast educational cultures that are bein’ established, transformed, and fortified.

ACT I: Lame Deer Elementary School, Northern Cheyenne Nation, Montana, USA

The first school has lost educational traditions of a Native American reservation in Montana. The isolated community has struggled with a mistrust of the United States public education system and high levels of chemical dependency which have drastically affected their community’s education.

ACT II: Lyceum Underground High School, Minsk, Belarus

Belarusian Humanities Lyceum flourished after the collapse of the Soviet Union bringing Belarusian heritage back into education. The community was ousted from their building in the center of the country’s capital by the new president, Alexander Lukashenko. Students now face up to two years in prison for attending the school. Locally, this education is worth everything - even their freedom.

ACT III: Village School, Korsimoro, Burkina Faso

French Imperialism left Burkina Faso with random borders that mixed different language traditions. Now, kids begin to learn the colonizer’s language in Kindergarten.

Classes are held in buildings without electricity or technology, sometimes in the middle of parent’s farms.

INTERMISSION 1: An Education Animation Break

This serves as a palette cleanse of visual and auditory sensation of the school vignettes as in the animation from Bowling for Columbine (2002).

ACT IV: Ebina High School, Ebina, Japan

Japan has a very formal, some would even say, rigid culture as it sustains the country’s centuries of elite educational tradition. Here, high school tests can determine the rest of one’s life.

ACT IV: Instituto Experimental del Atlántico José Celestino Mutis, Barranquilla Colombia

Educational tradition is sustained by focusing on each student learning five foreign languages at Instituto Experimental del Atlántico José Celestino Mutis. Despite having no cost to students, it is a top 10 school in Colombia.

ACT V: Lycée Henri Bergson High School, Paris, France

Lycée Henri Bergson is one of the lowest ranked high schools in Paris yet seeks to establish an educational tradition for its immigrant-heavy population. Incoming lower ranked students are despondent and sometimes hopeless as they often also have a language barrier to overcome.

ACT VII: Leadership Public High School, Hayward, California, USA

Leadership Public High School in Hayward, CA is a charter school that utilizes modern technology to optimize student learning. The school tests students through smart phones and laptops to provide real-time assessments of learning in the classroom. Teachers engage students through scholarly bonding to propel pupils forward.

CONCLUSION

By observing education systems side-by-side the audience is primed to think about their own community and to leave the documentary to make changes in their local educational systems and are pushed to do so in the final words of the documentary.

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Background

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Children are our future, as society changes even more rapidly. Diversity in perspective increases profit, performance, and problem solving efforts. However, recently political parties have vehemently fought diversity and inclusion. This is often because organizations historically sought to diversify because it is just, and don’t consider the benefits to diverse decision making. To address this issue directly, Frames of Reference looks at one of the most complicated problems we face as a human race: educating our children. It teaches by listening to the wealth of knowledge across cultures in education. This enables viewers to gain knowledge about positive traditions that can change one’s own local education system by making education and diversity entertaining.

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Participants

Nimesh Patel

Silhouetted Viewer

Participant

Nimesh Patel

Silhouetted Viewer

Nimesh Patel is a comedian and Emmy-nominated writer. Nimesh most recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and before that made his late night debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers. He wrote for Chris Rock for The Academy Awards in 2016 and toured with him. Since then, he has written for “Saturday Night Live,” The White House Correspondents Dinner, and was a producer for “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.

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Shonali Bhowmik

Narrator

Participant

Shonali Bhowmik

Narrator

Shonali Bhowmik is a musician, actress, comedienne, filmmaker, writer, attorney and activist. She co-hosts her podcast We Don’t Even Know. She’s a member of the comedy collective Variety Shac, with Chelsea Peretti, Heather Lawless and Andrea Rosen. She created television pilots for Adult Swim and IFC. She was a leader of Ultrababyfat who was featured in David Cross’ tour DVD Let America Laugh.

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Akbar H. Cook Sr.

Celebrity Principal

Participant

Akbar H. Cook Sr.

Celebrity Principal

Akbar H. Cook Sr. is a devoted educational professional, student advocate and Principal at West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey. Mr. Cook gained nationwide notoriety when he installed washing machines in his school to deter bullying and embarrassment for his students. Ellen invited him on her show and eventually started the “Lights On” providing students a safe place during peak crime hours.

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Style & Tone

The movie will open with two diverse friends in silhouette, casually sitting down to watch a movie that we’ll see from here on out called The Education Project. The Education Project is a documentary within our film Frames of Reference. Throughout the film, the two friends in silhouette are sparingly shown viewing and commenting on what they see from the different schools. This technique will remind viewers of where and how they are watching the documentary

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During the majority of Frames of Reference, our film’s audience will be watching The Education Project full screen. Animation and narration will guide viewers to different schools around the world with contextual information with playfully written text.

Each place we go the school’s personality is presented through a chorus of undervalued voices shaping education around the world through 1-on-1 interviews.

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Team

Justin Hall

Director

Team

Justin Hall

Director

Justin Joseph Hall is a Brooklyn based award-winning, multilingual Director and Editor who’s worked as a lead creative on projects that received awards at The Emmys, TriBeCa Film, & Brooklyn Film Festivals and two that were acquired by HBO. The son of two teachers from the Midwest, Justin’s smooth, melancholic juxtapositions create beauty from chaos. Discovering new perspectives that reveal the world we live in captivates and drives him in life and work. He lives this diversity by learning language. For instance, he became fluent in French after seeing Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), learned Spanish for love, Portuguese for family, and married into Italian. He believes Guy Debord described media the best in Society of a Spectacle. His deep knowledge of cinematic history allows him to dig fresh space within media’s diverse landscape. He states, “The execution of an idea is more important than the idea itself.” Through these firm principals, Justin has directed a global, high-value workforce from New York to Paris to Tokyo, solving complex problems in moviemaking and society. As a Director, Justin evokes emotions and spurs thought through fiction and non-fiction works like Artist & the City (2021), his docu-series on creative careers, won 6 awards including the Audience Award for Best Series at YoFiFest. Prologue (2020) is a surreal exploration of relationships and miscommunication winning Best of Awards at festivals like the Manhattan Film Festival. He’s currently editing his first feature, Frames of Reference, an education adventure that explores 7 astonishingly diverse schools in 6 countries revealing how to create a better society for ourselves by cultivating our kids’ capabilities. Justin helped pitch and develop the Axios (2018-2021) as Senior Editor for the Emmy-winning documentary series. He edited Abuela’s Luck (2018) which was picked up by HBO and is now slated to be adapted into a full-length feature. His mastery of post-production particularly in carving compelling narratives from raw, vérité-style, fiction, and caught footage has awarded him opportunities to work for PBS, History, & National Geographic. Since 2014 under Justin’s direction, from Brooklyn, Fourwind Films continues to explore statistically underrepresented points of view with emotional depth. Its sister company, Quatre-Vents was created in 2022 to help create a greater Post-Production industry in his home state of Minnesota which is close to his heart. Justin's thought-provoking media and lower-middle class sentimentality continually disrupts the rich and redundant motion picture industry.

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Olga Loginova

Producer

Team

Olga Loginova

Producer

Olga Loginova is a Belarusian-American is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer and video journalist. She is the Executive Producer and host of the nonfiction narrative podcast "Leaving the Island". Her work can be found on The Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, Yahoo!News, VICE News, PBS NewsHour, Eurasianet, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and VOA. Olga Loginova has graduate degrees in filmmaking and environmental and science reporting. She is passionate about documentary cinematography, and is open to collaborations. Camera: Sony FX6

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Budget

This section includes information about this project.

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