Student's Movie Short to Compete in Hollywood Film Festival

Film documents impact of PA club's micro-lending project in Indonesia

February 26, 2009 -- While other filmmakers sit on a panel discussing their newly premiered documentaries at the International Family Film Festival (IFFF) in Hollywood, Calif., Brooks Dyroff '09  will be some 3,000 miles away captaining what could be his final hockey game against archrival Phillips Exeter on the enemy’s home ice. And although his focus will be helping the Big Blue qualify for tournament play, a tiny part of him might be wondering what the audience of eager moviegoers is saying about his documentary short, “Change for Change.”

The three-minute film, which premieres in Los Angeles on Saturday, February 28, presents an overview of Dyroff’s 2008 trip to Ubud, Indonesia, on behalf of Phillips Academy’s student-run Microcredit Initiative and his own nonprofit CEO4Teens. In the short, Dyroff, who first traveled to Indonesia on behalf of CEO4Teens in 2007, interviews youths who have completed the CEO4Teens program to determine three eligible recipients of the PA Microcredit Initiative microloans. The microloans are intended to help young people start their own business ventures.

For Dyroff, combining his interests in film and philanthropy was a natural progression. “Film has always been a passion of mine,” says Dyroff, “and I have always been involved in various service projects, too. I started off breaking down cardboard boxes, bagging apples, and teaching kids to skate. But I began to feel my efforts could be used to do something greater. I decided I wanted to help people with education, because education is poverty’s medicine.”

Dyroff joined PA’s Microcredit Initiative in 2007 after cofounding the nonprofit CEO4Teens in his hometown of Boulder, Colo., earlier that year.  Since its inception, CEO4Teens has raised more than $27,000 and sent more than 20 young Indonesians to a one-year vocational school where they receive instruction in English and computer skills. The Microcredit Initiative, which sells bagels each Tuesday in Phillips Academy’s student lounge in George Washington Hall, donated its 2007 proceeds, in the form of microloans, to Dyroff’s Indonesian enterprise.

“Change for Change” also will be screened at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in Wales this summer. For Dyroff, this is the second time one of his films has received widespread recognition. His 2008 documentary short, “A Drop in the Bucket,” which documents Dyroff’s first trip to Indonesia, was featured at the Newport Beach Film Festival in California, the Bayou City Inspiration Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and the KIDS FIRST! Film Festival in Santa Fe, N.M.