Winner of the Special Jury Award at the Sheffield Doc/Fest, The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three "Violence Interrupters" who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. From acclaimed director Steve James and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here), this film is an unusually intimate journey into the stubborn persistence of violence in our cities. Shot over the course of a year out of Kartemquin Films, The Interrupters captures a period in Chicago when it became a national symbol for the violence in our cities. The city was besieged by high-profile incidents, most notably the brutal beating of Derrion Albert, a Chicago High School student, whose death was caught on videotape.
142 min.
The film's main subjects, Ameena, Cobe and Eddie work for an innovative organization, CeaseFire, which believes that the spread of
violence mimics the spread of infectious diseases, and so the treatment should be similar: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. The singular mission of the "Violence Interrupters" - who have credibility on the streets because of their own personal histories - is to intervene in conflicts before they explode into violence. The Interrupters follows these three "Violence Interrupters" as they go about their work, and while doing so reveals their own inspired journeys of hope and redemption.
"A gut-wrenching documentary" says Manohla Dargis of The New York Times.
New York City, NY; NYC