'First Position': Ballet Documentary By Bess Kargman Is Set To Hit Theaters (VIDEO)

We're not ashamed to say it: we here at HuffPost Culture love dance movies unconditionally. Even the most mediocre ones are addictive (see: "Center Stage," "Step Up"), and the legitimately good ones ("The Red Shoes," and its great-grandchild "Black Swan") are in a league above other legitimately good movies because, duh, there's dance in them! That plus the fact that we also love documentaries blindly is making us majorly excited for Bess Kargman's "First Position," a feature-length film that's -- get this-- a documentary about ballet.

According to objective sources, Kargman's film, which Indiewire posted an exclusive poster look at today, is actually as good as we're expecting it to be. Her account of 6 dancers headed to the Youth America Grand Prix in New York City, or "the world's largest student ballet scholarship competition," was award bait on last year's festival circuit, picking up a Jury Prize at the San Francisco DocFest, Audience Awards at Doc NYC and the Portland International Film Festival, and 2nd place for the People's Choice Award at TIFF. It's also been compared to "Spellbound," which, as far as mainstream successful docs go, pretty much set the bar.

As for the poster, there's a jump in mid-air, the New York City skyline is flooded in sunlight, and the only words are some thrilling stats about the enormous odds these kids face! Ugh, it's amazing. Head over to Indiewire for a look, and check out the preview for the movie below. "First Position" is set to hit theaters May 4.

WATCH:

Comments

[beckola]

10:28 AM on 04/18/2012

Ballet, taking and teaching, absorbed 30 years of my life. I was never anywhere near as good as the dancers in this trailer, yet it gave me such strength and confidence, and I still do it for exercise. I also learned that no matter how hard one may work, there's an inherent talent that is either there or it isn't, and that means the different between good and great.

I was in a store one day and saw a tiny girl, less than two years old, whose right leg was extended to the side, toe pointed, so naturally graceful that I was amazed. I said to her mother, "She's a ballerina, you know that, don't you?" And her mother laughed and said, "She loves ballet! She has every Beatrice Potter ballet book and loves the pictures. She prefers watching ballet tapes to cartoons." Lucky little girl whose mom recognized and nurtured her talent at such a young age.

That encounter made me ponder whether some children's souls are infused with a certain talent, whether it be singing or dancing or playing a musical instrument. But I do know that no matter how talented, it takes a lot of hard, hard work to achieve the level these dancers in this film have achieved.

Really looking forward to seeing this movie.

[justCannot]

11:27 AM on 04/18/2012

I actually got goosebumps!

[beckola]

12:02 PM on 04/18/2012

Thanks for getting what I was talking about!

[Angie Daniels]

03:51 PM on 04/17/2012

wow. I started crying just watching that. Amazing!

[metoo123]

10:56 PM on 04/16/2012

Thanks for this heads up! It looks fantastic!

[jefchan]

09:00 PM on 04/16/2012

W/o the tilde.

[jefchan]

08:59 PM on 04/16/2012

Please see Wender's "Piña"