Director: Hope is the real star of 'Step' documentary

In 2009, producer/director Amanda Lipitz began shooting footage for what would become an extraordinary documentary, "Step," which opened at theaters this weekend. (Read my review at bit.ly/2vzKHGF.)

The doc follows the Lethal Ladies of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, a charter school preparing every student to graduate from college.

The Baltimore-born-and-bred filmmaker sat down with me at Chicago's Park Hyatt Hotel for five questions:

Q. What role does hope play in your movie?

A. I see hope and joy in the students, their families, in their step team, in their teachers and in their school. Everywhere you look. Even in intolerable circumstances. They find joy. I find that joy infectious. That's something I hold on to. Because that's what they hold on to.

Q. Your film puts Baltimore in a rather hopeful light, doesn't it?

A. The impetus for us to make the film was to tell a different story about Baltimore. To show that even during a week of tragedy with Freddie Gray's death, that there's a pocket of joy and hopefulness embodied by these young women and their teachers and their school.

If you walk into that school any day of the week, any hour when school is going on, you will be hit by joy and hope and heart the second you walk in there.

Q. How did you achieve such a "fly on the wall" access to students, who don't seem to be aware of the camera?

A. I've known them since they were 11 years old. They are like family to me. They got used to me coming around five or six times a year to film shorts to raise awareness at the school.

I never thought about approaching them to make a documentary. It wasn't until Blessin (Giraldo, step team founder) invited me to film the step team. I would never have done that had she not asked me. That was really where it all started.

Q. How did you obtain such incredible access to students and the school?

A. The filming was incredibly strenuous and grueling. I'm covering 19 teenage girls. There are 500 other girls in school and I wanted to make sure they were not distracted and the cameras didn't interfere with them.

Q. You've taken years to shoot and edit this project, now you're all over the continent on an endless promotional tour. Aren't you exhausted?

A. I was told how tired I would be of being out to promote the movie at all the screenings, but it's so invigorating! To see thousands of people watching the movie and seeing how inspired they are. It just keeps you going.

Once you get tired, you go into the next screening and hear the cheers and the laughter and the applause, everything that a filmmaker could hope for.

Oh, and the sniffles! It's a totally amazing experience.