Saturday, November 15: 8:15 pm

A teenager stands up in class and explains why his favorite color is black. Wearing black, he says, makes it easier to escape into corners undetected and to obscure the dirt on his clothes. This scene is just one of the many in Alexandra Westmeier's documentary about adolescent boys incarcerated at a Russian reformatory that break the heart. Her patient camera captures them sitting quietly in rows at class, learning to use a gasmask, making their beds, washing the hallway floors, in a woodshop cutting wood. Intercut are interviews in which the boys describe their home life and the offenses that brought them to this place. Some speak of alcoholism, beatings, theft, and grisly murders, recounted in seemingly indifferent tones. Other boys cry remembering home, a kind but absent stepfather, a remiss grandmother who forgets to write. Breathtakingly shot with a painter's eye for color and composition, Westmeier's film allows these boys a freedom of expression like they have never had nor probably will ever get again.