February 2010

Justine Nagan's Typeface will have its Greek premiere at the 8th AGON Archaeological Film Festival in Athens this May 11-16, 2010. The festival exhibits films "dealing with Archaeology in its wider sense (i.e. Antiquity, Middle ages, or even Industrial archaeology), Patrimony and dying Popular Art and Traditions."

Click here for a full list of films and more information on the festival.

Kartemquin Films will share a collection of activist documentaries, including Labor Stories, Taylor Chain I & II, Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes, and new 2010 feature Prisoner of her Past, at the first ever Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland during April 23-25th 2010. Kartemquin's Jerry Blumenthal and Judy Hoffman will attend. Screening times are as follows:

Prisoner of Her Past (4/24, 12pm)

Taylor Chain I & II (4/24, 4:30pm)

Golub: Late Works Are the Catastrophes (4/24, 8:30pm)

Labor Stories (4/25, 4pm).

Get more information.

In a "Grade A" review True/Slant's Piet Levy stated that Steve James' No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson "is a complex, thought-provoking film with no easy answers, but plenty of challenging questions. Kudos to James for asking them." Read the review here.

Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) attended Sunday's sold-out screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center, and will again present a 'sneak peek' of the film on Thursday February 4th at 8:15pm. Get tickets here.

The trailer for Kartemquin's new 2010 release Prisoner of Her Past will be made exclusively available this week to subscribers to the Kartemquin newsletter. If you'd like to be the among the first to see the trailer, please sign up here. All new sign-ups this week will be sent the newsletter containing a link to the video and a password to enter. There's also an exclusive interview with Steve James on his new film No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson and a review of new DVD Taylor Chain Parts I & II. Don't miss out!

Kartemquin would like to congratulate director/producer Joanna Rudnick for receiving a FORCE (Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered) 'Spirit of Empowerment Award.' Joanna will be honored in the Arts and Media category for giving "a powerful and moving voice to the hereditary cancer community" through her award-winning film In the Family. 

The inaugural Spirit of Empowerment awards will be presented on June 26, 2010 at the 5th Annual Joining FORCEs Conference in Orlando, FL. Get more information.

This week Kartemquin Films took delivery of the newest Sony tapeless HD video camera, the PMW350. The camera is one of the first in the country (serial #33) to be in service. Featuring a shoulder mount design with 2/3 inch chips, the camera replaces a tape based Panasonic HD camera. The 350 uses the same memory card based workflow as our smaller EX3 camera, thus allowing producers to shoot many hours of high quality HD footage with no tape or digitizing costs.

Due to the larger chips, the new camera features a very high light sensitivity of ASA 850 at "0" gain to allow available light High Definition shooting in almost any setting. With a low power draw of only 16 watts, fewer batteries are needed for a full day of shooting.

The camera is full 1080x1920 resolution, and shoots 24P, 30P, and 1080i.

For smaller projects and web videos, the Sony 350 also shoots 16x9 standard definition DVCam to memory cards.

This morning, Kartemquin's technical director Jim Morrissette gave a quick workshop on the new camera to various Kartemquin staff members including artistic director Gordon Quinn, post-production director Liz Kaar, post-production associate Nora Gully, administrative and media assistant Dinesh Sabu, and Usama Alshaibi, director of the forthcoming American Arab and DP Chris Rejano. Usama will be putting the camera in service tomorrow as he shoots for American Arab, and we will be putting video excerpts of Jim's workshop on the Kartemquin YouTube channel soon. Stay tuned!

Typeface's Associate Producer Starr Marcello spoke this morning to over 100 attendees at the national College Art Association conference in Chicago before a panel entitled, "A Case for Letterpress."  Professor Dennis Ichiyama, featured in Typeface, and Artist Ashley Pigford (who designed a poster in support of the film) presented on the panel.

Click here to check out a new video on Kartemquin's YouTube channel from the Chicago premiere of the award-winning Typeface on January 29th 2010 at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Director Justine Nagan, Cinematographer Tom Bailey and Jim Moran of the Hamilton Woodtype Museum are among those featured in this video of the SOLD OUT event.

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson was one of ten films revealed to be playing at the 2010 Dallas International Film Festival (April 8-18) this week. Check the website for more details. The date for the screening is still to be announced.

The film's World Premiere is at SXSW in March, and it will also play twice at the Cleveland International Film Festival on March 20th and March 21st. Steve James will attend each screening. More festival dates for the spring will be announced soon. Watch this space!

London College of Communication designers Alexander Cooper and Rose Gridneff stopped by Kartemquin yesterday on their way to delivering a paper at the 'Case for Letterpress' session at the College Art Association Annual Conference in Chicago. They met with Justine Nagan to find out more about how her award-winning film Typeface documents the recent resurgence of interest in the near dormant letterpress artform. Check out their photos of the visit here.

Director/producer Steve James and writer/producer Alex Kotlowitz, currently in production on the forthcoming Kartemquin documentary The Interrupters, will discuss the intersections of film and nonfiction in a free talk at Northwestern University next week. The talk takes place on February 23rd at 5:30pm at Northwestern's Evanston campus. Click here for more information.

Alex Kotlowitz is currently writer in residence at the Northwestern University Center for Writing Arts. Click here to read an article about a recent talk he gave at the Center where demo footage of The Interrupters was shown.

Northwestern University in Qatar will host the Middle East premiere of the Emmy-nominated documentary In the Family on March 16th at 9pm. Director/Producer Joanna Rudnick will attend the screening. NU-Q students will also screen their own mini-documentary, which has been submitted to the Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival competition, as part of the event.

The breakthrough screening marks yet another remarkable achievement for the 2008 film, which also continues to screen across the US and is regularly being used as a focal point for opening up discussions about genetic patenting and cancer awareness. The New York Law School will host a screening of the film and a panel discussion on February 22nd, and Yale Law School recently hosted a similar event on February 11th.

Rudnick will be in Qatar as part of a month-long trip she is undertaking to film the work of photographer Rick Guidotti's Positive Exposure project in addressing the treatment of Albinism in Africa and the Middle East for her next film, On Beauty. The film's crew - Rudnick, Guidotti, Dana Kupper and John Mathie - leave for Kenya on Saturday to begin filming. To support the project, click here.

Check out the Kartemquin YouTube channel to see brand new trailers for 2010 releases Prisoner of Her Past and No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson.

Click here to see Prisoner of Her Past. Click here to see No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson.

Both films will be touring festivals this Spring, with a number of dates already confirmed. Check our Events page for screenings near you, or join our mailing list to stay informed!

The Sundance Institute will host a free public screening of Kartemquin's legendary documentary Hoop Dreams at 7pm on March 4th 2010. Director Steve James will be in attendance for a post-screening discussion of the film, which will screen at the Park City Public Library. For more information, click here.

The multi-award-winning film - often claimed to be the greatest documentary ever made - first captured public attention when it won the Audience Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. This is the latest of a series of reprise screenings that have coincided with the 15th anniversary of the film, marking its continued relevance and ability to engage new audiences. Events in Chicago and New York last year were wildly popular, and other upcoming screenings include a February 26th event in Tucson, Arizona, at which the film's stars Arthur Agee and William Gates will be present.

The Huffington Post's Andrew Wander today published a review of Kartemquin's new documentary Prisoner of Her Past. Lauding the film as a "a brave work of personal discovery that explores a scandalously under-reported phenomenon," Wander compliments the film's subject and Co-Producer, Howard Reich, for having the courage to undertake the journey to investigate his mother's late onset post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD). Read the rest of the review.

Prisoner of Her Past had its North American premiere at the 2010 Big Sky Film Festival. On Sunday, February 28th at 1:30pm, audiences in Illinois will have a chance to watch a special "sneak preview" of the film at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. To find out about more screenings and the upcoming DVD release, join the film's mailing list.

Watch the trailer for Prisoner of Her Past.

Kartemquin Films is proud to announce the release of The Kartemquin Films Collection: The Early Years - Volume 1: 1967-1968.

The DVD features Parents and Thumbs Down, two classic cinéma vérité films from the formative period of Kartemquin's 44-year history, plus an exclusive interview with filmmakers and Kartemquin co-founders Gordon Quinn & Jerry Temaner.

In Parents, sit in with a Chicago parish youth group as they discuss issues of parental authority, growing up, and the struggle to communicate with their parents. In Thumbs Down, join the group in an anti-war Mass and witness the deepening crisis of communication between their generation and that of their parents, priests and neighbors. Thumbs Down has been digitally remastered from the original fine grains and 35mm soundtrack mix.

"Thumbs Down offers a great deal of understanding about the nature of a neighborhood that is often talked about in the most oversimplified way… Temaner and Quinn are filmmakers and 'inquiring reporters' with great insight, and they have a lot to tell us about ourselves."
—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 1968.

Visit the Kartemquin Store today to purchase your copy!

Coming Soon: The Early Years, Volumes 2 & 3
The release marks the latest step in Kartemquin’s attempt to re-release all of the films in our entire back-catalog by 2011. The Early Years Volume 2: 1969-1970, featuring Hum 255 and What the F&*# are These Red Squares? and Volume 3: 1971-1974, featuring Now We Live on Clifton, Trick Bag, Winnie Wright, Age 11 and Viva La Causa, will be coming to DVD this Fall. Volume 3 will also feature a special reunion interview with members of the original Kartemquin Collective.

Some beautiful new posters and t-shirts are now available in the Typeface store! New items include exclusive prints by designer Jason Early, and prints and signed monoprints by Stacey Stern of Steracle Press that were designed especially for the film's sold out Chicago premiere. Grey and Black t-shirts are also available in all sizes. Buy yourself (or a super-cool friend) some sweet Typeface merchandise today! As this brilliant recent review of the film on the TCM Movie Morlocks blog states: "Typeface makes wood type and letterpress artistry look cool, even sexy."

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson will have it's world premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival on March 14th at 11am.

Director Steve James will attend, along with Executive Producer Gordon Quinn, Producers Emily Hart and Adam Singer, Cinematographer Keith Walker and Post-production Supervisor Liz Kaar. A second screening will also take place on March 19th at 2:45pm.

Click here to watch the trailer.

Kartemquin's Gordon Quinn will be a judge for the inaugural One Chicago, One Nation Film Contest.

One Chicago, One Nation is a multi-media initiative organized by One Nation, The Chicago Community Trust, Link TV, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN). It is a first-of-its-kind regional initiative and national model that promotes pluralism and inclusion to engage a representation of the Chicago area’s 400,000 Muslims with other culturally diverse residents as a critical step toward overcoming ongoing tensions.

The Film Contest is hosted by Link TV and awards $50,000 in prizes for stories illustrating Chicagoland neighbors working together to achieve common goals. Individuals throughout the country can begin submissions of short films of up to five minutes in length online at www.linktv.org/onechicago. Submissions will be accepted until Friday, April 23, 2010.

Click here to check out a new video on Kartemquin's YouTube channel from the Chicago "sneak preview" of Steve James' highly anticipated No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

In the video, Steve James discusses why he decided to return to his hometown of Hampton, Virginia to pursue this story, and the strong emotions he encountered when trying to investigate the racial conflict that divided the town.

Also featured in the video are the film's Co-Producer Adam Singer, Assistant Editor Leslie Simmer, Post-Production Supervisor Liz Kaar, and Kartemquin's Executive Director Justine Nagan.