A Space to Grow

A Space to Grow is a 1968 American short documentary film produced by Thomas P. Kelly Jr.. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. Upward Bound programs from Chicago are featured. Henry Fonda is the narrator.

Henry Fonda narrated this really quite dry documentary looking at the state of opportunity for young people from less privileged backgrounds in the American Mid-West. Centred around a group of curious and aware students in their late teens, it follows their educational processes, their debates with each other, their politics - inducing reason and anger in equal measure, before rounding off with some well-intentioned, if a little earnest, commentary from educators about how education can and will improve the lot of just about everyone in an American society that is still rife with segregation. Time has really left this behind, and it is now little better than a group of opinionated kids performing to camera offering - as we all did - the gospel according to me.