The “Lethal Ladies” are set to dance their way into theaters. Fox Searchlight has announced a release date for “Step,” Amanda Lipitz’s inspirational documentary about a step dance team — known as the “Lethal Ladies” — at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the film will hit select markets July 7.
The doc, which made its world premiere at Sundance last month, follows three senior girls and the rest of their dance team as they make their way through the overwhelming, complicated, and emotional college application process. The Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women — founded by Lipitz’s mother, Brenda Brown Rever — “opened in 2009 with a mandate to send every single student to college no matter the challenges at home or environment,” THR explains. These girls are fighting against all the odds to get a postsecondary education. While they may struggle in other areas of life, the girls soar in step. The “Lethal Ladies” succeed on their terms.
Fox Searchlight doesn’t distribute many docs, but they reportedly shelled out more than $4 million dollars for “Step,” a strong indication that they see great potential in the feature. They also secured the remake rights to “Step,” so a narrative version of the doc may be on the way.
Lipitz is a Broadway producer whose credits include “The Humans” and the “Legally Blonde” musical. “Step” marks her directorial debut. She took home the Special Jury Award for Inspirational Filmmaking at Sundance, where she brought along 19 members of the step team. “I couldn’t ever go without them,” Lipitz told the Baltimore Sun. “It was their movie.”
After students at The Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women told Lipitz about the “Lethal Ladies,” they encouraged her to bring cameras to the school to record their dancing. “You need to come film us,” they told her. The Baltimore Sun reports that “Lipitz arranged to film the students stepping at the school soon after, which left her speechless.”
“My heart kind of exploded because I’ve been living my life in musicals, and, to me, it was like a musical,” she recalled. “In a musical, characters can’t speak anymore so they sing to express their fears, their hopes and their dreams, and that’s what these girls were doing with step.”
When the film was acquired by Fox Searchlight, Lipitz emphasized that the doc “was made as a tribute to the bravery and conviction of the young women in the film and to the courage they demonstrated in their willingness to share their story.” “We hope that the heroes of ‘Step’ will inspire girls everywhere,” she said.
