Described by the filmmakers as “a film about the coming of age in the working class,” this candid exploration of a group of teenagers in Muncie, Indiana was commissioned by PBS as part of their “Middletown” series, then shelved when the filmmakers refused to excise the talk of sex and drugs that they had recorded with free-flowing intimacy. Shown at international film festivals including London, Edinburgh and Toronto, Seventeen has been widely acclaimed as a rich film about American life. “Seventeen is controversial because it is truthful.... the teenagers in the film smoke dope...talk back to their teachers, get drunk, have illegitimate babies and get involved in inter-racial relationships.... It may not be ‘real life' (not with a camera watching) but it is superb cinema” (London Film Festival).