This is a contributor post to The Dossier by Jennifer Sey.
She is an author, filmmaker, business executive and retired artistic gymnast. She was the 1986 USA Gymnastics National Champion, produced the Emmy Award-winning documentary “Athlete A,” and has written two memoirs, “Chalked Up” and, most recently, “Levi’s Unbuttoned,” which chronicles her 23-year career at the company, where she became the president of the global brand. Write regularly to Look at everything.
You can support his film by donating to his GiveSendGo fundraiser here
Covid generation
As someone who has publicly challenged both the efficacy and ethics of public school closures since the beginning of the lockdowns and ultimately i lost my job for having done so, you could say I’m invested in this issue.
Thus, for a year and a half, I have been working on a documentary that tells the stories of children, teenagers and families affected by the prolonged closure of schools and other harmful restrictions.
The film is called Covid generation.
We interviewed young people and their families in cities and small towns across America: in Colorado, California, Florida, Connecticut, New York and Oregon. By delving into the lives of these children, it became abundantly clear: the children are not well. This generation faces devastating setbacks such as learning loss, overwhelming mental health challenges, record absenteeism, substance abuse and addiction, lost opportunities, and increased uncertainty about his future All because schools were closed by force during covid.
The school provides not only an education for children, but also structure and community. And for many, school provides the services they need: food, shelter, mental health support, abuse intervention and more. Countless young people were simply lost without school as an organizing principle in their lives.
Long after adults returned to normal, children and teenagers continued to be restricted, kept alone and isolated, despite clear data showing that covid posed little threat to the young and healthy. And now, our children are paying the price. We all will, eventually.
Despite the clear and incontrovertible evidence of the harm being done – especially to the most vulnerable children – political forces, bolstered by public health officials and a complicit media, sought to censure and vilify anyone who questioned its effectiveness. of these unprecedented and unscientific decisions.
We spoke with experts from various fields—doctors, scientists, journalists, teachers, lawyers, child advocates, and mental health professionals—who sounded the alarm about what was happening to our nation’s children in real time.
By offering an experience that challenged the mainstream narrative, these experts were demonized, censored and ostracized in their communities. But they persisted. And today, they’re working to pick up the pieces and make sure this never happens again.
This film will reveal the harsh realities of post-covid America by focusing on the long-term damage done to a generation of children.
Here’s the trailer:
So why make a movie?
I believe in the power of art to move hearts and minds.
In 2008 I wrote a book called Chalked Up about my experience as an elite gymnast in the 1980s. It was a memoir about the emotional, physical and sexual abuse that is pervasive in the sport of gymnastics. Four years after its publication, the famous coach of the 1984 women’s Olympic team and the coach of the national team during the 1980s, a predator with whom I traveled all over the world for competitions, finally was banned from sports.
In 2020 I produced a film called Athlete A which won an Emmy for Best Documentary that year. It connected the crimes of Larry Nassar (the former Team USA gymnastics doctor who has gone to prison for sexually abusing hundreds of young athletes) for general abuse in the sport.
The movie started in movement. The gymnasts – some retired, some still competing – started a campaign on social media, telling their stories of abuse at the hands of coaches, ignored by sports officials and governing bodies that should have protected them. The women and girls used the hashtag #gymnastalliance when they told their stories. The campaign led to research on sports governing bodies around the world. And now, a new culture is being built in gymnastics and the wider Olympic movement, from the ground up. All because the athletes insisted on the change after watching the film.
That’s my hope for this movie. We need much more than just acknowledging that school closings were harmful and ineffective. We need responsibilities. Government leaders and public health officials can never again be allowed such control over our lives. Lockdowns and school closings were a serious violation of our civil liberties and have now wreaked havoc on this generation of young people.
If the trailer excites you and you want to contribute funds to help us finish the film, you can here through our Give to Send Go campaign
Every little bit helps. We have to edit the full-length film, pay for the use of stock footage and music, add graphics and finalize color and sound and everything that goes into making a world-class documentary . Our plan is to finish the film in the next few months, secure distribution and release it in the spring of 2024. But we need your help to make it happen.
Let’s start a movement. together
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