Winner of the 2013 SXSW Narrative Grand Jury Prize, Destin Cretton’s Short Term 12 is the entirely successful feature expansion of the writer/director’s excellent 2009 short about counselors and youth at a residential facility for at-risk teens. Flipping the gender of his protagonist from the short to the feature, Short Term 12 stars Brie Larson (a recent Actor winner at the Locarno Film Festival) as a savvy counselor whose spirit hasn’t yet been crushed by the bureaucrats above her. Of course, she’s challenged, not just by troubled teenagers but also by life changes and self-worth issues, the latter stemming from her relationship to her soon-to-be paroled dad. Short Term 12 is a warm, generous film that retains a heartfelt emotional authenticity. And the natural and nuanced Larson, here following a strong supporting turn in James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now, is a breakout.

Short Term 12 opens today from Cinedigm.

Larson is interviewed by filmmakers Russell Costanzo and Melissa B. Miller in a video supplementing our Summer iPad edition. In this half-hour interview, which includes clips, they widen their lens to include Cretton along with cast members John Gallagher, Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Keith Stanfield.

(The above intro was adapted from our 2013 SXSW coverage in our Spring, 2013 issue.)