A documentary about growing up free.
TROUBLE FINDS ME follows the harrowing and hopeful journey of four young people at F.R.E.E. LA, a new alternative high school that was once a juvenile jail.
High school seniors Trelin and Alex face serious criminal charges that could result in years of prison time. But they aren’t alone. Their friends and teachers — Lupita and Jahzara — are in it with them, fighting to transform a brutal juvenile justice system.
Together, they’re all locked in a high-stakes battle for a brighter future — not just for themselves, but for the next gen of systems-impacted kids.
The filmmakers embedded themselves at the school for an entire year, capturing transformative, verite moments of lives that often hang in the balance. Ghosts of the building’s former function remain – a door marked as the Sheriff’s office, empty jail cells, and judges’ podiums in the classrooms. Six years after the courthouse closed under pressure from young activists, these rooms now form a cop-free campus that attempts to bring peace, understanding, self-knowledge and justice instead of conventional discipline.
Can today’s incarcerated kids become tomorrow’s leaders in an ongoing fight to transform the spaces that imprison them?
