The New Americans

As the 'noughties' draw to a close, many critics have been publishing their lists of the decade's best films. Kartemquin is honored that our 2003 film Stevie is represented in a few of these lists, capping an incredible decade of growth and achievement for our organization.

Stevie is increasingly being recognized as a modern documentary masterpiece, gaining acclaim as one of the top 25 essential documentaries of the decade in a list by popular online critic Marilyn Ferdinand. NewCity Film critic Ray Pride went even further, listing Stevie at #19 in his ranking of the decade's best films in any genre. Only one other documentary placed higher. Stevie also gained a #5 place on Filmsweep's list of the decade's best documentaries, was #1 on Collin Souter's list on eFilmCritic, and was the highest-placed documentary on this top 50. The Onion AV Club's Keith Phipps also placed the film at #57 on his top 100, and Sunday Morning Reviews ranked it at #19, calling Steve James "the best documentarian working today… to make Stevie and Hoop Dreams in one lifetime is an amazing feat."

Our 2004 series The New Americans was also heralded as "the greatest accomplishment of any documentary this decade" while placing at #2 on a list of the top 10 Chicago movies of the past decade by Chicago Beat.

During the past decade, Kartemquin Films has released ten documentaries and received numerous awards and accolades, including a MacArthur 'Genius' Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, a Peabody Award (for Terra Incognita: Mapping Stem Cell Research), an Emmy-nomination (for In the Family), a Gold Hugo (for The New Americans), and several other awards from film festivals across the world including Sundance, IDFA, Atlanta, Chicago, Full Frame, Florida and many more. Two Kartemquin films have also been short-listed for the Academy award for Best Documentary (Stevie and At the Death House Door).

As we enter into our 44th year, with three new films - Typeface, No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, and Prisoner of her Past - screening across the world in 2010, and a number of our classic films due to be released on DVD, we look forward another decade of successful cinematic social enquiry. Happy new year!

Acclaimed Kartemquin filmmaker Steve James will attend the Chinese premieres of his award-winning documentaries Hoop Dreams and Stevie this December in Beijing. The screenings are a part of the IDOCS International Documentary Forum, a week-long celebration of documentary film taking place at the nation's top cinema school, the Beijing Film Academy, from December 12-17. 

The unmissable double-bill of the acknowledged classics Hoop Dreams and Stevie occurs on December 13th. Despite garenering numerous awards and praise over the years, neither film has ever played inside the world's most populous nation until now. Steve James will participate in Q+A's after both screenings.

Steve will also take part in several panels discussing his own career and the current state of documentary film throughout the week (see our events page for full listings). A highlight of the week will be an exclusive, in-depth 'master class' on the production of Stevie on December 14th, in which Steve James will discuss the film with director Peter Wintonick (Manufacturing Consent).

For more information, please visit the official website.

To mark the finale of the Chicago PBS re-broadcast of The New Americans, Kartemquin will be hosting a live chat with Series Producer Gita Saedi Kiely, and many more of the producers and directors who worked on the epic 7-part series on immigration to the United States.

Join in with the chat at 1pm CST on 09/16/09 by visiting www.kartemquin.com/chat.

Can't make the live chat? Submit questions to the filmmakers in advance via tim@kartemquin.com

With support from The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Peter and Lucy Ascoli Family Fund of The Chicago Community Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Ford Foundation and The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Kartemquin Films is excited to finally announce that their epic seven-hour series, The New Americans is now available on a 2-DVD set. Extras include: additional scenes, character updates and a Spanish SAP track. Order it now!

Kartemquin's award-winning series The New Americans will be re-released on DVD on January 27th, 2009. Order your copy now!

Kartemquin's Jim Morrissette and Julie Englander met with 7th and 8th grade video students at the Eli Whitney/LVCDC Community School in Little Village on Thursday, where they screened clips from Now We Live on Clifton, The New Americans, and a few of Jim's PSAs, and talked about working as documentary filmmakers. The Little Village community and LVCDC had been the subjects of some Kartemquin filming in the winter, and this class was a great opportunity to demonstrate a little bit more of what Kartemquin does, as well as introduce ourselves to a new generation of video fans!

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.

Segments of Kartemquin's 2004 mini-series, The New Americans, will screen Wednesday night, February 27th at the University of Chicago, as a part of "Displacement Week." The screening, presented by Students for Human Rights, is free and open to the public. It begins at 8pm, with refreshments and discussion to follow the film. Get the details.

Kartemquin's Steve James will be at Washington State University's College of Education next week for their 4th Annual Globalization, Diversity and Education Conference. He will be screening and discussing Kartemquin's 2004 film, The New Americans.

Kartemquin's award winning series on immigration, The New Americans, is currently featured on PBS.org. Take The New Americans Immigration Quiz now.

Kartemquin's Steve James has been invited to join The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This September Steve, and the 114 other 2007 inductees, will be welcomed in at an invitation-only ceremony in Los Angeles.

Kartemquin Films recently received support from The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation to assist with the creation of The New Americans DVD with an added Spanish language track. Kartemquin is in the process of beginning work on the DVD and this grant will be central to moving the project forward.

The University of Chicago's Kartemquin Retrospective culminates this weekend with a screening of Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes this evening at the Gene Siskel Film Center at 8pm, a Master Class with Gordon Quinn and Jerry Blumenthal tomorrow morning, Saturday the 12th, at 10am and a panel on Documentary at 1:30 following. Saturday's events take place on campus. You can get more information here.

This Sunday the 13th, Kartemquin has two presentations at the Chicago Humanities Festival. At noon, "Revisiting The New Americans" with filmmakers Jerry Blumenthal, Steve James and Gordon Quinn, takes place at Depaul University. At 2:30, Gordon and Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune meet with John Callaway to screen a sample from our current production, Prisoner of Her Past and discuss the production at the Merle Reskin Theatre. More information on both events can be found here.

The kick-off event of the Kartemquin Retrospective at the University of Chicago is Thursday, October 27th at 7pm at the Film Studies Center at 5811 S. Ellis. The evening entitled "Violence & Power" will include screenings of Thumbs Down, Hum 255, Trick Bag and The New Americans as well as a discussion with the filmmakers following the film excerpts.

Other events for the Retrospective will take place throughout November. For more information visit here.

Kartemquin Films will be involved with two events at the 2005 Chicago Humanities Festival.

Sunday November 13th - Noon
KARTEMQUIN FILMS: Revisiting The New Americans

The New Americans tracks four years in the lives of a diverse group of contemporary immigrants and refugees as they journey to start new lives in America. A 40-minute excerpt of the award-winning film is followed by discussion with the filmmakers Gordon Quinn, Steve James, and Jerry Blumenthal. More information/tickets

Sunday November 13th - 2:30pm
HOWARD REICH, GORDON QUINN: Prisoner of Her Past

Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films and Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune present excerpts of their documentary-in-progress, Prisoner of Her Past. The film will trace Reich's attempt to uncover his mother's tragic Holocaust childhood in order to understand why she is reliving it, 60 years later. Quinn and Reich discuss the film with John D. Callaway. More information/tickets

The International Documentary Association awarded The New Americans its 2004 Limited Series Award. The other nominees were Martin Scorcese's The Blues, Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire, and American Experience: New York: A Documentary Film–The Center of the World, Episode Eight (1946-2003).

If you are interested in making a tax-deductible contribution to community organizations that support immigrants and immigrant rights, or in supporting one of the families or individuals featured in The New Americans with a tax-deductible contribution, contact Crossroads Fund via their website or call them at 773-227-7676 and ask to speak with Jeanne Kracher or Inhe Choi.

The New Americans, a PBS miniseries premiering March 2004 from award-winning Kartemquin Films and ITVS, follows four years in the lives of a diverse group of contemporary immigrants and refugees as they journey to start new lives in America. The detailed portraits – woven together in the seven-hour miniseries – present a kaleidoscopic picture of immigrant life and a personal view of the new America. We follow an Indian couple to Silicon Valley through the dot.com boom and bust; a Mexican meatpacker who struggles to reunite his family in rural Kansas; two families of Nigerian refugees escaping persecution, including the sister of slain activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa; two Los Angeles Dodgers prospects with big dreams of escaping the barrios of the Dominican Republic; and a Palestinian woman who marries into a new life in Chicago only to discover in the wake of September 11, she can not leave behind the pain of her homeland. Kartemquin has assembled a team of talented directors including the producers and director of Hoop Dreams, Who Killed Vincent Chin, and Vietnam, Long Time Coming. They tell startlingly intimate stories of the day-to-day travails and triumphs of these newcomers, from before they leave their homelands through their first tumultuous years in America.

Visit the The New Americans website.

To purchase The New Americans series on home video, visit Home Vision Entertainment online, or call 888-572-8918.

For workplaces, schools and community organizations that would like to use shorter stories from The New Americans to increase understanding of recent immigrants, Active Voice and Kartemquin Films offer three brief, themed video modules for a nominal fee. Each module includes a DVD or VHS cassette with two or three family stories that are each twenty minutes in length, plus a companion print guide that includes:

• Discussion questions and reaction quotes from users to start dialogues
• Workshop curriculum to keep discussion focused and productive
• Immigration statistics to provide national and local context
• Resource lists for further insight and partnership

For more information visit Active Voice.

To order The New Americans companion book published by The New Press, call 800-233-4830.

The New Americans soundtrack by Norman Arnold is also available for purchase: visit CD Baby.

The New Americans Series Guide and Activity Book is now downloadable for free. The guide contains thoughtful classroom and community activities prompted by scenes and quotes from the film, including ESL and professional development activities for educators and health care providers. Find out more at ITVS.

The New Americans website offers an online educational adventure for 7th-12th grade students. The site supplements the upcoming documentary mini-series, which explores the immigrant experience through the personal stories of immigrants to the United States. Visit here.

Learn more about the exciting national outreach and educational campaign and sign up for the monthly e-newsletter here.