Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz's highly-anticipated new Kartemquin documentary The Interrupters is the recipient of a $17,500 grant for Civic Engagement from the Fledging Fund.

The grant enables the filmmakers to embark upon an ambitious outreach campaign that aims to provoke national and local policy debates on violence prevention, while creating a hyper-local approach to addressing systemic issues in the nation’s most violent neighborhoods. Social action will be encouraged through innovative transmedia initiatives that aim at excoriating the root causes of endemic violence and reaching at-risk youth through non-traditional media. Sonya Childress of California Newsreel will now join the project as a Consultant/Outreach Coordinator to help develop and implement the strategy.

The filmmakers are also grateful to additional recent funding from ITVS, the Sundance Documentary Fund and the MacArthur Foundation, which will now allow Steve, Alex and the team to concentrate fully on completing the film for broadcast and civic engagement in 2011.