A middle school turns out chess champions in 'Brooklyn Castle'

Is chess cool? In my day, being in the school chess club was about as hip as being on the audiovisual squad and a full step lower than being in the marching band.

Times have changed, though. At least they have at Intermediate School 318, an inner-city school in Brooklyn, New York. Despite the fact that more than 65 percent of its students are from homes with incomes below the federal poverty level, this middle school has consistently trained the most-winning junior-high chess teams in the nation.

As inspirational academic stories go, it doesn’t get much better than this, which is no doubt what attracted first-time feature filmmaker (and Brooklyn native) Katie Dellamaggiore to make a film about I.S. 318.

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