MetaFilter posts tagged with Documentary and chicago

Staying out of the whole "good-and-bad-drama"

IvoShandor — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:43:07 -0800

Tonight Frontline aired the documentary film "The Interrupters", the video is available on Frontline's website. On WTTW, Chicago's major PBS affiliate, a special "Chicago Tonight" followed the presentation. It featured a panel discussion with Violence Interrupters Ameena Matthews, Eddie Bocanegra, and Cobe Williams, an interview with the filmakers and an interview with former Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis and CeaseFire Director Tio Hardiman. There is plenty of other content on the PBS page. Videos: "Meet the Interrupters", "Caprysha, Lil Mikey, Kenneth… Where Are They Now?". Some pieces by Azmat Khan: "CeaseFire: Stopping Violence and Measuring Impact", a Q&A with the filmmakers and others. There is also an essay by producer Alex Kotlowitz. Despite early Oscar buzz, the film was snubbed for Best Documentary. CeaseFire. *Previously on the Blue: "The Interrupters", CeaseFire.

The Interrupters: Documenting CeaseFire on the streets of Chicago

hydrophonic — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:52:29 -0800

The Interrupters is a new film from Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here) about the work of CeaseFire's Violence Interrupters (previously), who work to prevent violence in Chicago with direct intervention and mediation. The film follows Ameena Matthews, the daughter of of a notorious gang leader; Eddie Bocanegra, who teaches art to children and is driven by remorse for a murder he committed when he was seventeen; and the charismatic Cobe Williams, who recently joined James and Kotlowitz for an interview with WFMT's Andrew Patner. Some of the videos contain strong language and scenes of violence.

Exile Nation: Drugs, Prisons, Politics, and Spirituality

nTeleKy — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:57:48 -0800

"I realized that I was one of those extremely rare individuals who was a former POW of the drug war, and who got out and had the opportunity to share his story with the world." "It kind of makes an activist out of you when 3 helicopters land in your backyard and guys jump out with guns and destroy your place before your very eyes." Exile Nation is a documentary [complete film] [trailer] and an ongoing memoir, a work of “spiritual journalism”, and eventually "a documentary archive of interviews and testimonies […] revealing the far-ranging consequences of the War on Drugs to the American Criminal Justice System." "The project will unfold over a two year period, beginning with the online release of this first feature-length documentary and then continuing on throughout 2011 and 2012 with a nationwide series of screenings, and the online release of short films and complete interviews from each of the 100 participants in the project, meant to represent the 1 in 100 Americans that are currently sitting behind bars." It's being headed by Charles Shaw, who is also releasing a book of the same name one chapter at a time..."It is a memoir of his life as a writer, addict, activist, prisoner, and spiritual seeker, a mosaic of his descent into shadow, his personal reckoning, and the long slow crawl back out to reclaim his life, heal the past, and start over." You could start with How This Book Came to Be and Why You Are Reading It Online: "I realized that I could spend years fruitlessly trying to get a neutered version of this book published through the standard model, in an industry that was in its twilight, until the book itself was no longer relevant. Or I could get ahead of the trends, be part of vanguard publishing model, and put it on the internet for everyone to see." However, the story really begins at 4:30am on tier 1A of Division 5 at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois

the backbone of Chicago

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:22:07 -0800

"It's a stretch of pavement both enriched and torn apart by class and ethnic divisions. When you go over a bridge or under a viaduct on this street you've left one country for another. It's the American melting pot at full boil." Halsted Street USA. (1995, 56 minutes, Color)

The Man in the Red Checkered Shirt

timsteil — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:32:26 -0800

Working With Studs is a radio documentary about Studs Terkel. You will like it. Good production and tech notes, courtesy of Transom.org

"[The customers] come in here, by my grabbing them and touching them and screaming at them they become human beings."

hydrophonic — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:58:18 -0800

Jerry's Deli (starts at 1:02) by Tom Palazzolo, 1976. A short documentary on deli owner Jerry Meyers, who's been screaming abuse at his loyal customers for 30 years. (Clipstream/Java video. Click on lower right corner of the video to enlarge. Or here's a Youtube with out-of-synch audio.) From MediaBurn's Chicago-centric archives of early independent video. More from Palazzolo. There's a lot more of WTTW Chicago's Image Union, which from the late seventies through the eighties introduced many unsuspecting viewers to provocative documentaries, experimental works, low-budget animations, comedy shorts, and seemingly anything else they thought would fit. Previously. Some Image Union highlights, not so Chicago-centric: Fela Kuti (at 1:17) Two films Heather McAdams made from found footage (at 1:03 and 26:28) "Cold Cows" and Frisbee Dog Recollections of vaudeville, with film from the 30s and 40s (at 16:41) "It Ain't City Music" (at 29:12), scenes from the National Country Music Contest, Warrenton, Virginia, in an episode full of amazing music. "The Calypso Singer" (at 1:13), a Stan Freeburg bit, animated Gus Van Sant's "The Discipline of DE" (at 17:49), an adaptation of a William S. Burroughs story about mastering the easy way. Media Burn by the way, is the film where the artists' group Ant Farm drove a 1959 Cadillac through a pile of burning television sets (previously). A clip served as Image Union's closing credits.

Parallel Worlds

TheGoldenOne — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:03:55 -0800

Another Country is the name of Chicago Tribune photographer Scott Strazzante's long-term documentary project. Presented in diptych form, he shows the lives of two subjects on the same piece of land separated only by time. From the Cagwin family farm to a sleepy suburban Chicago subdivision, the striking images magically embody the old saying- the more things change, the more they stay the same. Strazzante also has a few photo columns at the paper covering the oft maligned beat of prep sports. Between Heart and Soul and The Season (1 and 2), he finds the story and pictures behind the same old high school sports you thought you knew or didn't care about.