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A reminder to join us for two Kartemquin screenings this week…

First, Kartemquin's first film, Home for Life is screening on Wednesday night the 23rd at 7:30pm in Evanston as a part of the REELTIME series. Join filmmakers Gordon Quinn and Jerry Temaner for this evening of documentary and discussion. Get the details.

Also, Vietnam Long Time Coming, is screening on Saturday night the 26th at 5:45pm at the Hyde Park Art Center as a part of their Creative Move event. Director Jerry Blumenthal will introduce the film and answer questions afterwards. Get the details.

We hope you can join us!

Kartemquin’s Gordon Quinn and Beth Iams spoke on Fair Use this evening at the Chicago-Kent College of Law at an event hosted by Banner & Witcoff. The filmmakers presented the tenets of the fair use doctrine and showed clips from Kartemquin works to illustrate how fairuse works in modern documentary production.

Kartemquin is excited to announce that fresh from the festival circuit, At the Death House Door will premiere in downtown Chicago with a week-long run at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Join filmmakers Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Gordon Quinn for the Chicago premiere and discussion following, at 8:00pm May 10th.

Stay tuned for news of future Chicago screenings around the city.

Joanna Rudnick recently guest lectured at her alma matter Northwestern University. She presented at colleague Chris Booker’s digital media class for undergraduates in the Medill School of Journalism. Joanna presented In the Family as a case study and shared a clip from the film.

Recently, our intern Nick shared his experiences at Kartemquin on the Columbia College Doc Center Blog. Read his thoughts.

Kartemquin's Peter Gilbert will be at the Sarasota Film Festival this weekend for screenings of At the Death House Door. The documentary is screening this afternoon as well as on Sunday evening at 5:15pm.

Gordon Quinn and Maria Fintzo's journey to Virginia next week was recently covered by the Virginia Tech Collegiate Times. A reminder that both Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes and Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita will be screened during events on campus next week.

Kartemquin's The Chicago Maternity Center Story was referenced in an article today in the Chicago Reader by J.R. Jones covering a series of film screenings called, "For a Better America: The New Deal on Film." The collection of work illustrates how cinematic experimentation wove its way through the New Deal sponsored government films. Jones describes one of the films included in the event, The Fight for Life, and how clips from it are featured in Kartemquin's Maternity Center doc.

Kartemquin's At the Death House Door will screen on Friday, April 18th as a part of the Minneapolis / St. Paul International Film Festival. Get tickets now.

Recent interest in Kartemquin's 1968 film, Inquiring Nuns, continues with a screening at the 2008 Rincon International Film Festival in Puerto Rico on April 24th. The film will screen with the feature documentary, The Listening Project. Get the details.

Kartemquin's Steve James and Peter Gilbert are being honored this evening at the 2008 IMAGE film awards gala in Atlanta for their recent work on At the Death House Door, in addition to their past film works. Congratulations to the duo!

Kartemquin's Director of Communications and Distribution Justine Nagan spoke on an alumni panel this morning at the University of Chicago. She joined four other alums of the Humanities Master's program to discuss their experiences for a group of prospective students.

Kartemquin's recent doc, At the Death House Door, was awarded the "Inspiration Award" at this year's Full Frame documentary festival in Durham, NC. Filmmakers Steve James, Peter Gilbert, Gordon Quinn and Aaron Wickenden attended the festival on behalf of the film.

Zak Piper, Kartemquin's Director of Production, represented Kartemquin today at a College and Career Fair co-hosted by The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Chicago Botanic Garden, for high school students participating in teenage programs throughout the Chicago area. He spent the afternoon hosting a booth and talking to students about possible careers in documentary film.

Kartemquin staff members, and UW Madison alumni, Justine Nagan and Liz Kaar will be heading to Madison tomorrow for the 10th annual Wisconsin Film Festival. Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita is screening Sunday morning at the fest at 11:15am.

There's a flurry of Kartemquin activity at this year's Full Frame Film Festival in North Carolina starting tomorrow morning! Kartemquin's award-winning 2004 series The New Americans is screening in segments beginning tomorrow morning at 10:45. Then, fresh from SXSW and the Dallas Film Fest, At the Death House Door is screening at 7:15pm Friday night. Lastly, Erik Weihenmayer, one of the subject's of Kartemquin's Vietnam Long Time Coming, is the focus of Blindsight, a film about a group of Blind Tibetans scaling Mt. Everest.

Kartemquin's Gordon Quinn, Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Aaron Wickenden are attending the festival to represent the films.

Join us on Saturday April 26th at 5:45pm for a free screening of Kartemquin's Emmy Award-winning film, Vietnam Long Time Coming, at the Hyde Park Art Center, preceded by an introduction from the filmmakers. The screening is part of "Creative Move: Moving Mountains" a 24-hour arts extravaganza. Get the full-schedule.

Kartemquin is excited to announce that Cinema/Chicago, the parent organization of the Chicago International Film Festival, is awarding Kartemquin Films with its "Commitment to Excellence Award" for lifetime acheivement in television production at its annual Hugo Television Award ceremony on May 1st, 2008. Read press about the award.

Kartemquin's Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes is screening at 7:00pm on Tuesday, April 15th at Virginia Tech University. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with Gordon Quinn and Virginia Tech professors from the Departments of Art and Art History, Communication/Film Studies, and Religious Studies. Get more information about the event.

We are pleased to announce that Milking the Rhino, the forthcoming documentary from Producer/Director David E. Simpson from a concept by Co-Producer Jeannie Magill, is the recipient of a $150,000 grant from the PBS Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Fund. The Fund was established in 2006 by way of a multi-million dollar grant from the Skoll Foundation, with the purpose of highlighting the work of people acting as change agents, improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating sustainable solutions to better society.

Milking the Rhino

portrays rural Africans at the forefront of community-based conservation: a revolution that is turning poachers into preservationists and local people into the stewards of natural resources.

With this grant, a strong outreach plan will be built and executed for RHINO, as well as an informative and resource-rich website to support the film's life beyond broadcast. These materials will help the film achieve its dual goal of challenging a general audience's preconceptions of conservation, and providing inspiration for those working and teaching within the field.

Kartemquin's Maria Finitzo will be participating in an event surrounding her recent film, Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita, at Virginia Tech in April. Finitzo will be visiting a class, participating on a panel, and answering questions following a screening of the film. The documentary will screen Monday April 14th, at 3:00pm. The event is free and open to the public. Get the details.

You can now watch clips from several Kartemquin Films on youtube. More to come!

Visit Columbia College this weekend and next for IFP Chicago's Doc-u-mania! The annual producer's series, this year focusing on production trends in non-fiction filmmaking, is featuring Kartemquin staff on two panels. First, Joanna Rudnick will talk with ITVS's Richard Saiz this weekend about her experience making In the Family. Then, next weekend, Leslie Simmer will be speaking during a panel on editing feature docs. Read the full schedule of events.

Kartemquin's Justine Nagan and JJ Hanley are featured in an article in this month's Chicago Bar Association magazine in an article titled: "Documentary Filmmaking, Portraying Reality Under the Fair Use Doctrine." While an anecdote about fair use and Hoop Dreams is slightly incorrect, the rest of the story nicely outlines the tenets of current documentary fair use beliefs and quotes the filmmakers speaking about the changing documentary landscape, as well as other past experiences with fair use in Kartemquin films.

Kartemquin's Joanna Rudnick has shared her story for the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (OCNA) Campaign to help pass the Biomarker Bill in congress. Her BRCA story forms the core of Kartemquin's recent doc, In the Family.

Kartemquin's In the Family will air nationally on PBS's award-winning series, P.O.V. on October 7th during breast cancer awareness month. Details to come!

Kartemquin's Justine Nagan traveled to Plymouth, MN on Thursday to speak to two classes at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School about her career in documentary film making. The ninth and tenth grade AVID students participated as a part of their english and social studies coursework and were inquisitive and open during the discussion. Thanks to Ms. Fuller and her colleagues for instigating the visit.

Last night, Kartemquin Executive Director Gordon Quinn visited Margie Nicholson's graduate seminar on arts, entertainment and media management at Columbia College to talk about arts policy issues and Fair Use in documentary.

Kartemquin's recent festival hit, At the Death House Door, will have its Chicago premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Saturday night May 10th. Filmmakers Steve James and Peter Gilbert will be in attendance.

Hoop Dreams tied with Hoosiers for #1 placement on a recent MSN list of the top Basketball films of all time. Check out the list.