OCTOBER 3, 2025 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Margaret Freeman
The film SPEAK. follows five high school juniors and seniors from across the country as they work towards the 2024 speech and debate national championship in original oratory. The film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in January and has gained many accolades since, including winning the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
As part of the Conflict & Community: A Pluralism Series, the CC film department held a screening of the movie along with a conversation with the filmmakers Jennifer Tiexiera and Guy Mossman ‘95 and CC President Manya Whitaker. Mediated by former CC Vice President Mike Edmonds, the conversation focused on the importance of storytelling and how the liberal arts education facilitates that.
Orators Esther, Noor, Sam, Noah and Mfaz all drew from their diverse backgrounds to craft 10 minute, memorized speeches using evidence and emotion to appeal to the audience. The orators chose to speak on social issues that they have experienced in their own lives. Three time original oratory champion Esther, the daughter of a Pastor who lives in South Florida, focused her speech on political rhetoric surrounding children. Noor is from a small town in Texas and spoke on her passion for disability rights, especially surrounding her younger brother, Noah, who is disabled and nonverbal. Sam is an openly gay teenager from Minnesota and he crafted his speech around how weaponized nostalgia impacted him as a queer child, in contrast with other members of his family. Noah is from Texas and spoke about death, as his mother died by suicide. 3rd place champion Mfaz is from Minnesota and spoke on the humiliation of people of color, making the choice to structure her championship speech around Palestine, an unadvisable choice considering how contentious the topic is.
The creation of this film, a form of storytelling in itself, allowed Tiexiera and Mossman to focus on the specific social justice issues that each of the students chose to speak about and to show the intricacies of original oratory as its own unique form of storytelling. “We felt it was important to see them telling stories at a high level,” said Mossman. Mossman emphasized how the documentary was not about the competition between the students but instead about how these students use original oratory to spread the messages they were passionate about.
The documentary medium also allowed the filmmakers to connect with the people they were filming. Tiexiera describes being moved by the students’ outlook on the world. After just one call with Esther, Tiexiera recalls feeling like the world would be okay with these students as future leaders.
As a CC alumnus, Mossman believes that the liberal arts education goes hand in hand with the type of storytelling that is done in the film. “The liberal arts experience is about knowing oneself and coming to understand one’s purpose or role in a community,” said Mossman.
President Whitaker echoed Mossman’s sentiment, saying, “Storytelling is critical to the foundation of education.” She emphasized the importance of educators, especially in higher education, in creating the space for students to discover who they are through storytelling. “We don’t know who we are, and so we give voice to our experiences and how we allow other people’s experiences to help shape our own destinies.”
In just 10 minutes, each of the orators showed why storytelling is a valuable route toward societal change. Through the five students followed throughout the documentary, Tiexiera and Mossman were able to tell a story about social change, education and self expression, all things that are honored by a liberal arts education. “It’s about feeling that courage and knowing oneself well enough to have to advocate about something,” said Mossman. “It’s the power of expression.”
SPEAK. will return to CC for the Rocky Mountain Women’s Filmfestival Oct. 17-19.