Ten camcorders were passed out among the student body of an East L.A. high school. After recording their "lives", the students passed the cameras on not unlike a chain letter...hence, the title. Of the results, 16 vignettes were edited revealing attitudes, opinions, and behaviors with diversity of ethnicity and subject. This documentary collection of amateur videography offers some poignant moments, some humor, some very frank sex talk, typical prom night, graduation and more. Want to know what's on the minds of kids today? Check it out.

...this one just isn't worth the cost of a movie ticket. What these filmmakers have done cannot properly be called filmmaking; rather, they just chose sixteen students of some diversity (though not quite as much diversity as the reviews have suggested) and set them loose. The results are, to be brutally frank, far more often boring, self-indulgent, overwrought and off-puttingly grainy than truly insightful.There are, of course, moments of recognition and identification of the sort only possible in documentary film, but overall there's not much more truth here than in "Bully" or, for that matter, a decent TV documentary of the same sort. Though full of talk about sex and sexual diversity and racism, the film brings nothing to the table that will be of use to anyone who has thought about any of these issues with any seriousness. And while certain segments serve absolutely no purpose other than to inject a bit of (admittedly welcome) comic relief, most often the five-minute limit keeps up from becoming emotionally involved with any of the students. An interesting idea, but thumbs down for CHAIN CAMERA.

Finally a REAL "reality" show! One Marshall High School student (in Los Angeles) is given a camera and a week to film their life then pass the camera on to a classmate. The resulting 10 vignettes create a compelling reality documentary. It is 100% human, thus it is often loving and compassionate, sometimes chilling, and sometimes extremely funny. The audience applauded loudly at the end. It makes one realize how phony the current "reality TV show" rage is.

Original and candid, this documentary represents our multi-cultural environment. Light in concept, it reaches many depths. The students make the most out of the notion of passing around video cameras to document their lives. The film touches on just about every issue teenagers have to deal with in today's world. It's multi-dimensional regarding gender, race and class. The kids are funny, totally honest and very real. The filmmakers respect their subjects and never trivialize their issues. This is the face of the world. The audience applauded at the end of the screening. Chain Camera is both riveting and heartwarming. You can't help but become involved with the subjects. Fantastic!