Troubled Teen Industry documentary THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT is screening at the DWFLA on June 29. We would love to invite you to the screening. Would you be interested in interviewing with our director/producer/editor of the film Mikaela Shwer.
Logline: What does it mean to be a survivor? Generations of children have been left with this question in the wake of abuse suffered at the hands of the Troubled Teen Industry, an unregulated network of for-profit institutions claiming to fix wayward teenagers.
Decades later, they are fighting back. Filmed over the course of nine years, "The Kids Are Not Alright" is an intimate portrait of trauma following three families’ journeys as they work to shed light on the devastating impacts of institutional abuse, pursue healing in the absence of justice, and fight to hold abusers accountable.
Check out our trailer here.
Peabody award-winning filmmaker Mikaela Shwer (Allen v. Farrow editor/co-producer; HBO's Last Call editor) is having her Los Angeles premiere of her second feature documentary Dances with Films LA on June 30, 2025. Filmed over the course of 9 years, TKANA features the personal journey and advocacy work of Liz Ianelli (also known as Survivor 993) - culminating in her efforts that led to an federal investigation and indictment of an alleged abuser, with a court case coming up in 2025.
Mikaela Shwer
Director, Producer, Editor
Mikaela is a documentary filmmaker and editor who loves to embrace storytelling with intimacy and impact. Her debut feature documentary, Don’t Tell Anyone/No Le Digas a Nadie, broadcast on PBS/POV in the fall of 2015 and was honored with the George Foster Peabody Award. In 2016, she worked with PBS to direct, produce, and edit eight short documentaries about the pursuit of the American dream for the national online series, Re:Dream. She is an Associate of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and a fellow of the Logan Nonfiction Program, the Film Independent Documentary Lab, and the DART Center Documentary Film Fellowship.
Mikaela’s editing career spans 15 years, editing projects for PBS, HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV. She worked as an Editor, Writer, and Co-Producer on the four-part documentary series Allen v. Farrow (HBO) for which she was honored with 2 Emmy nominations for her work. Other recent editing work includes the Netflix documentary series, Harry & Meghan, which became the all-time most watched documentary on Netflix, and the documentary series, Last Call (HBO) which was released to critical acclaim in July of 2023 for its sensitivity and attention to care for the victims.
Mikaela worked to keep this film independent throughout the course of making it - we had opportunities to sell the film years ago and went out to market, but were disillusioned by what companies generally were looking for in "true crime" pitches. We were told we needed a celebrity, we needed to go get someone out of a program on camera, etc. We also heard stories from survivors who were taken advantage of through awful contracts and pressures with competing stories. Mikaela took the project back at that point and decided to keep it fully independent so that she could maintain the care for the story and for our contributors - without that, we also never would have had the time to follow and film the conviction of a perpetrator 4 years later.
Mental health: contributor and team care - This is a story rife with trauma and it took special care to complete in a way that our contributors feel seen and emboldened by sharing their story, even though it brings up so many awful memories. Mikaela spent years cultivating her relationships with the people in her film, offering transparency, collaboration, trust, and sometimes protection in every way she could.
Over the years, Mikaela has continued to educate herself on how to operate better as a filmmaker in these trauma-filled spaces through many peer groups, therapy, and most recently - being selected for the Columbia School of Journalism Dart's Cent Documentary Film Fellowship to speak and learn about ethics and mental health in journalism.
Mikaela also works on high profile true crime documentaries and has become known for sharing dark stories with impact, care, and centering the victims.
Festivals
World Premiere
Dances with Films New York 2024
Best Documentary Feature, Audience Choice Award
December 7, 2024
Regal Union Square
New York City
Dances with Films Los Angeles 2025
Sunday June 29, 2025, 10:00 am
TCL Chinese 6 Theaters
Hollywood, California
Wyoming International Film Festival
Friday, June 11, 2025, 2:10 pm
Pathfinder Building II
1400 E College Drive
Cheyenne, WY
Milwaukee Film Festival
Saturday, April 26, 2025
12:45 pm
Monday, May 5, 2025
3:00 pm
Oriental Theatre
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Poppy Jasper Film Festival
Best Woman Directed Documentary Feature
Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature
April 13, 2025
1:00 pm
Morgan Hill Community Playhouse
Morgan Hill, California
Atlanta Documentary Film Festival
DOCUFEST
Best Director
March 22, 2025
3:00 pm
Limelight Theater
Atlanta, Georgia
Garden State Film Festival
March 29, 2025
9:15 pm
Berkeley Continental
Asbury Park, New Jersey
Arizona International Film Festival
April 5, 2025
2:00 pm
The Screening Room
Tucson, Arizona
