A Movie in Black and White : Riot aftermath: Hollywood crew joins Watts students to make two-hour documentary. Some prejudices are knocked down as a result.

Yolanda Woods hated white people because she thought they did not care about the lives of African-Americans in the ghetto.

Then one day shortly after the spring riots, a group of white Hollywood filmmakers came to her high school in Watts and offered to help produce a film the students would make about their community.

The result: “112th & Central: Through the Eyes of the Children,” a two-hour documentary emphasizing the message that racial barriers can be overcome, even in racially divided Los Angeles. The film is screening through Saturday at the Nuart Theater on the Westside.

“You can never find white people in Watts, so for them to take a chance and come out here meant a lot,” Woods said about the filmmakers. “They understood where we were coming from as black people, and they didn’t try to change us.”

The 20 students from the 112th Street Elementary School and the L.A. Achievement Center, a special program on campus for high school dropouts, shot the film in hopes that their work will prompt others to re-examine their prejudices.

Nearly six months after the riots, African-Americans and whites have more in common than they realize, including a desire for peaceful neighborhoods, the students said. Like residents across the city, many in South-Central Los Angeles who appeared in the film were stunned by the Rodney G. King beating trial verdicts and condemned the unrest that followed.

“When it comes to Watts, all you ever hear about are drugs and thugs,” said Stephon Barnett, 17, who worked on the project. “There’s good people down here who want to end the violence. Give us a chance to show who we are, a chance to make it right.”

The film mixes interviews with gang members, OGs (original gangsters), police, religious leaders, business people, politicians and parents with footage of the riots and the King and Reginald O. Denny beatings. Because of their familiarity with the community, the students were able to report details and stories that others might have missed.

For instance, OGs from the Nickerson Gardens, Imperial Courts and Jordan Downs housing projects have played a key role in maintaining the gang truce, the students said. That influence apparently has filtered down through the ranks.

“It’s about time we stopped the violence,” Smoke, a Blood with a red bandanna around his head, said in the film. “It’s time for us black brothers to work together.”

In yet another segment, Police Chief Willie L. Williams offers an unusually personal reflection on the King verdicts.

“I remember I was sitting in my office in Philadelphia 3,000 miles away,” Williams told two students seated with him at the 112th Street school. “I knew that my honeymoon with the LAPD went out the window with (those) verdicts. I felt deep down in my heart that the jury just didn’t understand what it meant to be a police officer (with) rules and regulations.”

The idea for the documentary originated in mid-May with independent filmmakers Jim Chambers, Hal Hiseyand about a dozen actor friends who wanted to “bridge the gap between Hollywood and South-Central Los Angeles.” Chambers and Hisey have just finished a feature film that they hope will be released soon.

Cities in Schools, a national dropout prevention program, linked the filmmakers with the L.A. Achievement Center site on the 112th Street campus. Meetings ensued between the professionals and students, who were given editorial control over the project. They decided to focus on five themes: the gang truce, police brutality, family, art and the future.

Students were paid $6 an hour; those under 16 earned a $100 stipend at the end of filming. About 40 film professionals, including sound engineers, editors and cameramen, supervised the students’ work and fine-tuned the finished product. In an effort to win the community’s confidence, the producers also hired OGs from Nickerson Gardens for security during 2 1/2 weeks of shooting in July.

“We wanted to make a story that came from the people, rather than going out like a news crew and trying to get something sensational,” Chambers said. Contacts between the white filmmakers and the African-American students that were tentative at first have grown into close relationships, both sides say.

Earlier this month, one of the elementary school students who worked on the project showed excerpts to corporate leaders, celebrities and members of Congress in Alexandria, Va., during a National Children’s Day event.

Chambers and Hisey hope to have the documentary aired on television or distributed nationwide and in Europe. The film will be screened Nov. 11 at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City for entertainment industry executives.

Meanwhile, the filmmakers are submitting the work to film competitions. And Chambers plans to offer the students and the OGs apprenticeships on his next film, to begin shooting in the spring.

“We’ve opened a window into a community that is generally not thought about except in terms of danger, poverty and ignorance,” Chambers said. “These people are full of life and spirit, as much as you’ll find anywhere in the world. It would be tragic if people forget how passionate and eloquent so many in the community are, and how thirsty they are for opportunity.”