SF DocFest 2025: Rebel with a Clause

OPENING NIGHT

A new docu-comedy where a grammar guru takes her pop-up grammar advice stand on a road trip across all 50 states to show that comma fights can bring us closer together in a divided time.

One fall day in 2018, Ellen Jovin set up a folding table on a Manhattan sidewalk with a homemade sign that said “Grammar Table.” Right away, passersby began excitedly asking questions, telling stories, and filing complaints. What happened next is the stuff of grammar legend.

Ellen and her filmmaker husband, Brandt Johnson, took the table on the road, visiting all 50 US states as Brandt shot the grammar action. The media went into a tizzy and people from every imaginable background visited the table to share a laugh, settle disputes, and talk about their grammar insecurities. These conversations took place in small towns and big cities, by bookstores and coffee shops, on beaches and mountainsides.

But this story transcends grammar. It’s the story of an epic quest to bring us all closer together. In a time of extreme social and political division, the Grammar Table is a place of unity and connection. The conversations at the table help answer the question “How can we all get along?”

Come for the grammar. Stay for the humanity.