The Interrupters
St. Luke's Social Justice Team invites you to join them for a screening of:
The Interrupters
(2011, Steve James, USA, 125 min.)
Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 8pm
Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State St.)
General Admission: $11, $7 Students, $6 Members
To add your name to the list of St. Luke's members attending this event, contact Joe Scarry.
The Interrupters documents the work of CeaseFire, a violence prevention program operating across the city of Chicago and here in Logan Square and Humboldt Park using intervention models drawn from public health research treating violence in a community in much the same way we would respond to other communicable diseases. Both the program and the film have earned critical praise, and have much to offer us by way of better understanding and working in our neighborhood.
Praise for The Interrupters:
"Patiently, brilliantly, Steve James looks closely at our society...Now, in THE INTERRUPTERS, he has made his most important film."—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"Superb...Ameena Matthews is the most compelling single figure I've seen on screen this year."—Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"Shapely, swift, engrossing...These are powerful stories of trust, transformation and renewal of hope in Chicago streets and the hearts of America."—Ray Pride, New City Chicago
"Searing...the bracing, life-affirming story of residents who are beginning to reclaim their streets, one corner at a time."—Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
"Stirring...a barbershop apology late in the movie is more powerful than anything you’ll see in a fiction film this year."—A.A. Dowd, Time Out Chicago
In this stirring and powerfully insightful year-long journey through Chicago’s inner city, Oscar-nominated director Steve James (HOOP DREAMS), in collaboration with author Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here), follows three courageous “violence interrupters” working for the innovative organization CeaseFire, as they patrol the city’s meanest streets to defuse scenarios of heart-stopping volatility. Interrupters, including dynamo Ameena Matthews, daughter of notorious gang leader Jeff Fort, are seen to be the only force standing between a killer and his victim when gang vengeance threatens. With unprecedented access, and with the specter of Derrion Albert’s horrific death hanging over the community, James captures the increasingly urgent one-on-one encounters where lives hang in the balance. HDCAM video.