Executive Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 40 years. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, called his first film Home For Life (1966) “an extraordinarily moving documentary.” With Home For Life, Gordon established the direction he would take for the next four decades, making cinéma vérité films that investigate and critique society by documenting the unfolding lives of real people.
At Kartemquin, Gordon created a legacy that is an inspiration for young filmmakers and a home where they can make high-quality, social-issue documentaries. Kartemquin’s best known film, Hoop Dreams (1994), executive produced by Gordon, was released theatrically to unprecedented critical acclaim. The film follows two inner-city high school basketball players for five years as they pursue their NBA dreams. Its many honors include: the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, Chicago Film Critics Award – Best Picture, Los Angeles Film Critics Association – Best Documentary and an Academy Award Nomination.
In the words of Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic for the Chicago Reader, “Kartemquin’s work teaches you to think about politics in both a very practical and entertaining way.” This is evident in Gordon’s early work, The Chicago Maternity Center Story (1976), about the struggle to save Chicago’s historic neighborhood-based home delivery service; Taylor Chain I: Story In A Union Local (1980); Taylor Chain II: A Story Of Collective Bargaining (1984); The Last Pullman Car (1983) and Golub (1990), a documentary on art, politics and the media, featuring American artist Leon Golub.
Rosenbaum’s comments still resonate today with films like Stevie (2002), about an abused man who is failed by the system, and his relationship to his big brother, filmmaker Steve James, for which Gordon (who was the film’s executive producer, producer and cinematographer) won the Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival; 5 Girls (Executive Producer 2001); Refrigerator Mothers (Executive Producer/Producer 2002) and Vietnam Long Time Coming (Producer/Director 1999), the story of disabled and able-bodied Vietnamese and American veterans brought together on a journey of reconciliation. The film, which was broadcast on NBC, won a National Emmy and the Director’s Guild of America’s award for Best Documentary.
In 2004, Gordon executive produced The New Americans and directed the Palestinian segment of this intimate seven-hour PBS series that chronicles the journey taken by new immigrants to this country and the obstacles they face once they have arrived. The series received many awards including the IDA Best Limited Series Award and the Council on Foundations Film Festival Award. He also produced Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes, an updated film about Leon Golub. He is currently directing a film on delayed posttraumatic stress syndrome in a childhood Holocaust survivor, Prisoner of Her Past and executive producing two films that deal with the human consequences of stem cells and genetic medicine: Terra Incognita: Exploring the World of Stem Cell Research, and In the Family. Finally he is also executive producing, Milking The Rhino, a film examining community based conservation in Africa and At The Death House Door, a film on a wrongful execution in Texas.
Gordon has been a long-time supporter of public media, and community-based independent media groups, and served on the boards of several organizations including The National Coalition of Public Broadcast Producers, The Citizens Committee on the Media, The Chicago Public Access Corporation, The Illinois Humanities Council, The Public Square and The IL Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
The deadline for Summer internships at Kartemquin has passed. Applications are currently being accepted for the Fall.