Debaters | movie | 2025 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

In a debate chamber, affluent high schoolers argue a bill on minimum wage in an effort to impress two working-class adul | dG1fOHc0M3BIRC1FcXM

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Alex Heller and I am the writer and director of Debaters, which is premiering at

00:11the 2025 Sundance Film Festival as part of the short film program. This is my debate tournament

00:17trophy. I was never on the debate team, I just was a judge for four years and they had extras

00:24at a tournament and I asked if I could take one home. What started as a weekend gig for me became

00:29an obsession because I had never seen such brilliant, ambitious, terrifying and also

00:36charming high school students and I often felt like, who am I to be judging them? This makes no

00:42sense. I have long loved this world and wanted to tell a story set here. Our film follows a young,

00:49shy debater. This is his first tournament and he is being put on the spot by a bitter judge with a

00:56chip on her shoulder. This is a story that follows the debate of whether or not we should raise minimum

01:02wage in America. But what the story is really about is people who come from really different backgrounds

01:07trying to have a dialogue about a sensitive topic. My first time at Sundance was in 2016 as a volunteer.

01:14I remember getting into Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea, sitting in the front row center seat,

01:21sobbing to myself the entire time, and here we are nine years later. I have a film premiering at Sundance

01:28for the first time and it is co-starring Kenneth Lonergan alongside J. Smith Cameron and Streetpod

01:33Polygilla. It really is super emotional and like a dream come true. So our whole team is so ecstatic to be

01:41here at Sundance and we can't wait for you to see debaters. Hope you enjoy it.