Young Plato – real life Robin Williams from Dead Poet’s Society is heading for a BAFTA

An extraordinary film called YOUNG PLATO is gaining Oscar and BAFTA interest. It is the triumphant true story on the transformation of young, troubled student lives with philosophy lessons from a Northern Ireland school’s wonderful headmaster Kevin McArevey – a real life Robin Williams from Dead Poet’s Society. In a neighbourhood that has one of the highest youth suicide figures in Europe, radical headmaster Kevin McArevey has swayed his students from the influence of violence, poverty, and drugs with lessons on Socrates, Aristotle, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

With the impact of his story and the film, he is now being asked to speak in Jordan, Beirut: Lebanon, Poland and other areas of conflict to see what we can learn about how we deal with conflict from an early age and what impact that could have on our society.

The headmaster Kevin McArevey is an inspirational speaker and he is available for interviews along with the film’s co-directors and producer.

Directed by IFTA-Nominee Neasa Ní Chianáín (Frank Ned & Busy Lizzie, Fairytale of Kathmandu) and Declan McGrath (Lomax in Éirinn, Stephen: My Fight For Life) and produced by BAFTA winner David Rane (School Life, In Loco Parentis), ‘YOUNG PLATO’ takes place in post-conflict Belfast’s Ardoyne. Amongst drug recruiters, street-crime and gang culture, the headmaster of Holy Cross Boys School wants his students to become free thinkers and believes that philosophy is the answer. At Holy Cross, teaching the students coping mechanisms, self-respect, and how to deal with their intergenerational trauma is as valuable as Maths and English.

Audiences are a fly on the wall as the eccentric teacher, who grew up locally and returned to help his community after his own struggles with mental health, teaches the boys to communicate their fears. Students replace physical conflict with intellectual debate, and apply the influence of philosophers to playground fistfights, illness, and parental disharmony. The result is extraordinary: the school is academically thriving, with the students who sit the 11-plus exam every year performing astoundingly well.

‘YOUNG PLATO’ is a heartfelt observation of the difference one teacher can make in the lives of his young students, and a particularly timely story as we continue to discuss the best ways to tackle toxic masculinity in the classroom and beyond.