Press Coverage for DeKalb Elementary

Filmmaker Magazine
Review by Scott Macaulay from the SXSW Film Festival

“One of the year’s best performances can be found in Reed Van Dyk’s DeKalb Elementary, a sustained master class in slow burn tension.”

“(Tarra) Riggs is incredible as a woman trying to keep it all together, and Van Dyk’s script, based on an actual 911 call, matches her talent.”

Sight & Sound, The International Film Magazine
Review by Laurence Boyce

“DeKalb Elementary uses the short form to its best advantage as it favours the understated and the intimate over the melodramatic and grandiose.”

“Writer and director Van Dyk keeps everything understated with a quasi-documentary feel… Yet despite its subtlety, the film has a strong emotional charge and the final moments are particularly affecting.”

Cineuropa

“DeKalb Elementary has the air of tension often associated with films dealing with similar subjects… But there’s also a rich vein of humanity throughout making it an emotionally powerful film.”