A couple weeks ago I had the chance to speak with Arne Johnson the producer and co-director of Girls Rock,  the documentary about young girls attending a “rock camp” to learn how to play instruments and maybe just learn a little something else about life, too, that was one of the most highly praised films of last year’s SIFF festival.  Johnson was articulate, friendly, passionate about his project and fully engaging and I am totally, totally sorry that I somehow managed to lose my detailed notes of our conversation.  I guess I’ll just have to tell you about the film myself.

Johnson and his co-director/cinematographer Shane King are two Sleater-Kinney fans who went to see S-K’s Carrie Brownstein speak one day.  During her speech, Brownstein mentioned her involvement with the Rock’n’Roll Camp for Girls, a place where 8 – 18 year old girls come from all over the country to learn how to form bands, write songs and build a supportive community.  King and Johnson thought this might make for an interesting film experience, so they called up the camp and haggled their way into getting permission to film.

The filmmakers thought they had a likeable movie subject on their hands and expected to be entertained by the experience, but what they didn’t realize until they were there at camp was how transformed they were going to be by the experience.  Boys and men have their own sets  of problems, of course, but it’s hard for them to understand the feelings of despair and powerlessness with which so many girls and women struggle, often for their entire lives.  Watching the struggles of these young women as they lived with the challenges the filmmakers had only understood as intellectual concepts (eating disorders, drug addiction, sexual harassment) opened the filmmaker’s eyes to the realities of what girls have to live with.  By the end of their filming experience, they felt genuinely awed by what they’d witnessed and that feeling permeates the film.

Rock’n’Roll Camp for Girls isn’t just a fantasy camp for girls who imagine themselves as rock stars—it’s a place that gives them the freedom to find their own strength and their own voice.  It’s a place that helps these girls become their own woman.  Girls Rock focuses on four of the girls at camp, but, really, it’s a story about much more than that–it’s a story about discovery, change and growth.

Go see it yourself starting this Friday at SIFF.