April 2007

Kartemquin filmmaker Maria Finitzo participated in The Midwest Independent Film Festival's Producer Panel on Tuesday the 3rd. The panel of local independent producers, moderated by Rich Moskel of the Chicago Film Office , discussed "The art of the distribution deal" in front of a crowd assembled at the Landmark Century Cinema to see the hip-hop documentary, Rock the Bells.

Long-time Kartemquin associate Judy Hoffman will be at the Tribeca Film Festival, to support Albert Maysles’ latest film, “The Gates,” for which she was one of the Cinematographers. The documentary was selected for the closing film of this year’s festival. Read the press release here .

Kartemquin’s Jerry Blumenthal was recently interviewed by The BG news during a visit to the Bowling Green campus earlier this month. He speaks eloquently about his history with Kartemquin and about his current project, editing Prisoner of Her Past. Read the article here

Watch WTTW’s Chicago Tonight at 7pm this evening to see a discussion with Kartemquin President Gordon Quinn and Board Member Peter Gilbert about Kartemquin’s current works-in-progress and their recent MacArthur Award.

Then, tune-in to Chicago Tonight again tomorrow at 7pm for a discussion about Autism awareness featuring selects from Kartemquin’s Refrigerator Mothers. Finally, on Friday night at 9:30pm, WTTW is re-broadcasting the award-winning film on Autism and its effect on families itself.

In the Family Director/Producer Joanna Rudnick is opening the 2007 Genetic Alliance Conference this July with a presentation about her experience living with a high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer and making a film about it. Read more about the conference and Joanna’s talk here .

This weekend, Kartemquin’s Gordon Quinn and Joanna Rudnick participated as mentors at the “Doing your Doc: Diverse Visions, Regional Voices” workshop sponsored by NALIP, LPB, the NEA, Columbia College and the IFP/Chicago. Gordon and Joanna met with emerging filmmakers to discuss their works-in-progress.

Kartemquin’s Director of Communications Justine Nagan visited a documentary class at Columbia College yesterday and spoke with students about her experiences at Kartemquin and in the field of documentary. She gave feedback to the class about projects they were working on, and showed clips from her work-in-progress, Typeface.

Kartemquin’s President, Gordon Quinn, is speaking on a panel at this weekend’s international “MIT5: Creativity, Ownership and Collaboration in the Digital Age” conference in Boston. His panel will address issues of copyright, fair use and the cultural commons. Kartemquin Board Member Pat Aufderheide is also on the panel. View the full schedule here . The event is sponsored by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, MIT and The Center for Social Media.

Kartemquin is excited to announce details of the Chicago-area premiere of its latest documentary, Terra Incognita: The Promise and Peril of Stem Cell Research, directed by Maria Finitzo. Two local events are planned for May 10th at Thorne Auditorium in Chicago, and May 16th in Evanston. View details for the event here .

Thanks to The Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University and The Silverstein Lecture Series for their support of these events.