October 3, 2011 3:46 pm
The Interrupters returns to the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on Friday for a two week run, October 7-20. Get times and tickets.
Filmmakers and CeaseFire Illinois staff will attend many of the screenings. The Thursday, October 20, 8:15 pm screening will be a benefit for CeaseFire, with the Gene Siskel Film Center donating their entire share of the box office to the organization.
Currently boasting a 98% approval rating from critics and being tipped as a frontrunner for a Best Documentary Oscar nomination, The Interrupters previously played at the Gene Siskel Film Center in a two-week run in August that was so successful it broke the 40-year-old venue’s all-time box record, with extra screenings added to meet audience demand.
The Gene Siskel Film Center reprise run will mark 10 uninterrupted weeks in Chicago theaters for The Interrupters, which has been playing since August at the ICE Theaters in Lawndale and Chatham.
The film has screened at the United Nations in celebration of the UN International Day of Peace, and has opened in over 75 cities in the US, Canada and UK. Kartemquin is currently receiving on average 10-15 requests per day from school and community groups interested in using the film to spur conversations about violence prevention. Recently, the film inspired a CNN.com feature on violence and a town hall meeting attended by the mayor of Milwaukee and other civic leaders.
The success of the film comes in a banner year for the esteemed Chicago film institutions, the Gene Siskel Film Center and Kartemquin Films. The Gene Siskel Film Center attracts over 80,000 filmgoers with 1,500 screenings and over 100 filmmaker appearances annually.
Kartemquin Films has celebrated its 45th anniversary in 2011 with a record-breaking year of over 1,000 screenings and television broadcasts of its social-issue documentaries. It has also been honored by ongoing local retrospectives hosted by the University of Chicago’s Doc Films and WTTW-TV, as well as tributes at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Milwaukee Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Bell Lightbox Theatre, and the Virginia Film Festival.
Kartemquin’s other new release for 2011, A Good Man, which follows controversial choreographer Bill T. Jones as he creates a work based on the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, also ran for a week at the Gene Siskel Film Center September 23-29 ahead of its PBS broadcast premiere on American Masters on November 11.